The tax authorities had disallowed deductions for purported administrative services paid for by Akzo Nobel India to a group company in Singapore.
The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal upheld the assessment in a Judgement issued in February 2022.
An appeal was then filed by Akzo Nobel India with the High Court.
Judgement of the High Court
The High Court dismissed the Appeal of Akzo Nobel India and upheld the judgement of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal.
Excerpt
“…this Court finds that all the three authorities below have given concurrent findings of fact that the Appellant had failed to furnish evidence to demonstrate that administrative services were actually rendered by the AE and the assessee had received such services. In fact, the ITAT has noted in the impugned order “….On a specific query made by the Bench to demonstrate the receipt of services from AE through cogent evidence, including, any communication with the AE, learned counsel for the assessee expressed his inability to furnish any evidence and repeated his submission to restore the matter back to the Assessing Officer for enabling the assessee to furnish evidence, if any.â€
(…)
“Further , this Court in Principal Commissioner of Income Tax-6 vs. Make My Trip India (P) Ltd., (2017) 87 taxmann.com 284 (Delhi) has held that difference of opinion between the parties, as to the appropriateness of one or the other methods to calculate arm’s length price, cannot per se be a ground for intereference and the appropriateness of the method unless shown to be contrary to the Rules specially 10B and 10C are hardly issues that ought to be gone into under Section 260A of the Act.”
“Consequently, this Court is of the view that no substantial question of law arises for consideration in the present appeal and the same is accordingly dismissed.”