Architectural design services whether taxable as
royalty/Fee for technical services under Article 12(3)/(4) of Indo-Singapore
DTAA
Facts:
Assessee
a Singapore resident had rendered specialized architectural design services
from which incomes arose from India. It was the plea of the revenue that these
were either taxable as royalty or as fee for technical services under Article
12(3)/(4) of the Indo-Singapore DTAA. Grounds of the assessee was these were
specialized services which did not "make available" any exploitable
benefits to the end users thus were outside the scope of the said
article. CIT(A) concurred with the views of the assessee.
Aggrieved revenue went in appeal to ITAT -
Held
against the revenue that the architectural design services were customized and
could not be applied elsewhere and hence they did not fall in the scope of Article
12 of the Indo-Singapore DTAA. The amounts were not taxable in India.
Applied:
DCIT v. Forum Homes (P) Ltd. (2022) 192 ITD 184 (Mum.
Trib.) wherein the Tribunal on
the similar fact pattern has held that the payment received in lieu of
architectural design services does not qualify as FTS.
Pune
Bench of the Tribunal in the case of Gera Developments P. Ltd. v. DCIT
(2016) 160 ITD 439 (Pune-Trib) : 2016 TaxPub(DT) 3742 (Pune-Trib)
Calcutta
High Court in CIT v. Davy Ashmore India Ltd. (1990) 190 ITR 626 (Cal-HC) : 1991
TaxPub(DT) 0903 (Cal-HC) - outright sale of drawings/designs are not
copyrights.
Case: DCIT v. Aedas Pte. Ltd. 2023 TaxPub(DT) 4380 (Del-Trib)