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2023 (1) TMI 227 - DELHI HIGH COURTStatus of a beneficial owner - provisions of Article 12 of the DTAA - assessee, in terms of Article 12 of the DTAA, had offered the aforementioned amount for taxation @ 15% of gross receipts - assessee had a back-to-back arrangement of passing on the fee received to its holding company - AO denied the respondent/assessee the benefit it had sought to take by resorting to Article 12 of the India-USA Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement - assessee which is a company incorporated under the laws of United States of America, rendered branding and management services to an Indian entity going by the name Fujitsu - HELD THAT:- First, there was no back-to-back arrangement, according to him, between the respondent/assessee, as noticed above, and its holding company, FL. Second, in order to deny the respondent/assessee the status of a beneficial owner, the AO had to find that the assessee was either an agent or conduit for the holding company i.e., Fujitsu Limited, Japan. The second proposition, as a matter of fact, flows from the findings of fact returned by the CIT(A). CIT (A) has found as a matter of fact that the appellant was playing the role of a service provider after procuring the same from other group companies and that it had dominion over the fees received by it. We have also put to Mr Chandra as to whether there was any ground raised in the appeal preferred before the Tribunal that the finding returned by the CIT(A) was perverse. No specific ground in those terms was framed. It is Mr Chandra’s submission though that the ground raised was that the CIT(A) had erred in concluding that the respondent/assessee was entitled to the status of a beneficial owner. To our minds, once it is held that there was no back-to-back arrangement and the respondent/assessee had dominion and control over the fees received by it and thus entitled to status of a beneficial owner, then, even according to the appellant/revenue, the provisions of Article 12 of the DTAA will kick in. Tribunal, as noted above, has sustained the orders passed by the CIT(A). According to us, no substantial question of law arises in the above-captioned appeal.
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