HC seeks I-T dept’s reply on notice to SABMiller

MUMBAI: In a move similar to the Vodafone case, the Bombay High Court has asked the I-T department to file a reply on a notice it issued to SABMiller UK pertaining to the latter���s $120-million acquisition of Foster���s India from its Australian parent in 2006.

The Pune income-tax office sent a notice to SABMiller in January 2008, asking it to furnish details of the deal. SABMiller has dragged the department to the HC, challenging its jurisdiction over a deal struck outside India between two non-resident parties.

According to SABMiller UK, the shares transferred to it as part of the deal belonged to a Mauritius-based company that was earlier held by a group company of Foster���s.

However, the department���s views on such an issue is amply clear from its stand on the $11-billion acquisition of Hutch-Essar by Vodafone from the Honk Kong-based Hutch International. The department ruled that profit generated in India was liable to be taxed in India, irrespective of whether the transfer of shares took place outside the country.

It is not yet known what the department���s estimate is on the capital gains arising of the deal, which involved the sale of a brand as well as physical assets such as a state-of the-art brewery in Maharashtra.

Earlier, the Authority for Advance Ruling (AAR) held that tax was payable in India on account of the profit arising from the sale of its (Foster���s Australia) brand, goodwill and licence to Foster���s India to brew the beer locally.