2006 (9) TMI 546

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..... Advocates ORDER 1. The Respondent/assessee is in the business of freight forwarding. During the course of a survey operation, it was found that the assessee has paid Ocean Freight and Inland Haulage Charges (IHC) for the financial year 2001-01 till 2003-2004 (31.10.2004). The assessee was asked the reasons for not deducting tax at source on the Ocean Freight and IHC in terms of Item No.(c) of .....

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..... payee companies to confirm if they were the agents of the non-resident shipping companies. On the basis of the information received, the assessing officer concluded that provisions of Section 172 of the Act would not apply to the payments of IHC. Further, it was held that since all the agents of non-resident shipping companies are resident companies, the provisions of Section 194C were attracted. .....

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..... t was noticed that the assessee had submitted a list of shipping lines along with the names of the agents and corresponding bills of lading to the assessing officer at the time of the survey itself. It was further held: ? In case the goods have been transported by a foreign shipping line, payments have obviously to be made to the foreign shipping lines or agents thereof. Even if payments have been .....

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..... nt order which read as under:   "16.2 Thus, payments of Ocean Freight made to non-resident or agents thereof for shipping business of non-residents are covered under Section 172 read with circular No. 723, Going by the law, where ever the assessee has submitted the confirmation from the payee Companies to the effect that these (Payees) are the non resident Shipping Companies or the agents th .....

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..... companies are Non Resident Shipping Company or the agents thereof."   6. We are of the view that the question whether whether the payees in the instant case, were agents of the non-resident shipping companies is a question of fact, which has been decided against the Revenue concurrently by both the CIT (Appeals) as well as the ITAT. As already noticed, both the CIT (Appeals) as well as the I .....

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