Madras High Court: A Division Bench of R Mahadevan and Sathya Narayan Prasad, JJ. dismissed the tax appeal holding that guarantee commission as well as royalty must be excluded from the business profit for the purpose of calculation of deduction under Section 80 HHC of the Income Tax Act, 1961.
The facts of the case are such that the appellant was engaged in the business of manufacture and sale of V & Fan Belts, Oil Seals etc. For the assessment year 2004-2005, they filed its return admitting a total income of Rs.14, 02, 65,870/-, which was subsequently, revised by them. Upon scrutiny of the same, the respondent issued notice under section 143(2) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter, “the Act”) and thereafter, completed the assessment under section 143(3) determining the total income which excludes long term capital gains. While doing so, the assessing officer, among others, restricted the claim of deduction under Section 80HHC by excluding 90% of the royalty receipts from the profits of the business under clause (baa) to explanation to section 80HHC (4). The order of AO was challenged before the Commissioner of Income Tax Madurai, who partly allowed the appeal. Aggrieved by this, the Revenue filed an appeal before the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (‘ITAT’) which thereby set aside the impugned order. Assailing this, the present tax appeal was filed under Section 260 A of the Income Tax Act, 1961.
Counsel for appellants submitted that the appellant entered into a MOU with its 100% subsidiary company; the subsidiary company manufactures the goods as per the specifications given by the appellant and the appellant has also provided know-how, secret formula manufacturing process and methods to ensure the same quality of manufactured goods; for providing these services, the subsidiary company paid royalty and hence, the royalty receipts are directly related to the goods exported by the appellant and the same cannot be excluded from the profits of the business.
The Court relied on CIT v. Bangalore Clothing Co., 2003 SCC OnLine Bom 40 , wherein it was categorically held that “guarantee commission as well as royalty viz., a payment for using a right, must be excluded from the business profit for the purpose of calculation of deduction under section 80HHC of the Act.
The Court noted that there is no concrete material produced by the appellant / assessee to prove that the royalty income received from the subsidiary company is related to export business,
Thus, the court held the “Tribunal has rightly directed the assessing officer to exclude the royalty income from the business profits for the purpose of calculation of deduction under section 80HHC of the Act, which warrants no interference.”
[Fenner India Ltd. v. Assistant Commissioner of Income Tax, 2022 SCC OnLine Mad 2923 , decided on 08-06-2022]
Appearances
For Appellant: Mr. Subbaraya Aiyar
For Respondent: Mr.M. Swaminathan, and Mrs. V. Pushpa
