SC gives relief to Hindustan Coca Cola in TDS case

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday held that Hindustan Coca Cola Beverage Pvt Ltd (HCCB) is not liable to pay further tax to the government on warehousing charges paid to a company, which had already deposited the due tax.

While allowing the appeal of the soft drinks major, a bench comprising Justices S H Kapadia and B Sudershan Reddy observed that tax authorities cannot claim taxes twice after the second party Pradeep Oil Corporation had paid the levy.

The court set aside the Delhi High Court judgement, saying it should not have interfered with the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal's order to reopen the matter.

"In the instant case, the appellant (HCCB) had paid the interest under Section 201 (1A) of Income Tax Act and there is no dispute that the tax due had been paid by deductee-assessee (Pradeep Oil Corp)... There is no dispute that POC has already paid the taxes due on its income received from HCCB and had received refund from the tax department," it held.

HCCB had entered into an agreement with POC for use of premises for storage purposes and had paid warehousing charges after deducting tax at source at the rate of two per cent.

However, tax authorities had held the soft drinks company as 'assessee in default', ruling that it should have deducted tax at 20 per cent as against two per cent. This was because warehousing charges were in the nature of rent as defined in explanation to Section 194-I of the Act, they had ruled.

However, the Tribunal, had ruled that though HCCB was rightly held to be an 'assessee in default', but there could be no further recovery of tax considering that POC had already paid taxes on the amount received from the former.

HCCL had submitted that no further tax could be collected from it as POC had paid the due taxes.