Applicability of the provisions of the Export of Services Rules, 2005 in certain situations

Jurisdiction of Dispute Resolution Panel-Income Tax Order No.3 Delhi High Court directs Army & Air Force to grant Permanent Commission to Women Officers Employment of washing process in the manufacture of agglomerates etc from imported plastic waste and scrap-SEZ Instruction No.48 Haryana Government imposes surcharge ranging from 0.25 per cent to 0.7 per cent on VAT Service Tax Notification No. 17/2010 which exempts the taxable service providing packaged or canned software, intended for single use and packed accordingly amended-Service Tax Notification No.18 Procurement, Import and Export of Prohibited and Restricted Goods by SEZ Units-SEZ Instruction No. 47 Tractors are chargeable to tractor cess in terms of the Tractor Cess Rules, 1992 read with the IDRA Act, 1951-Central Excise Circular No. 916 Authority for Advance Ruling rules the amounts received/receivable by Technopromexport from NTPC under contract for Offshore supply of all plant and equipment including mandatory spares are not liable to tax in India under the provisions of the Income-tax Act, 1961 and DTAA between India and Russia-AIT-2010-79-AAR whether Cess levied under section 5 of Textile Committees Act, 1963 is includable as a component of CVD-AIT-2010-78-HC Export warehousing –Extension of facility at Gautam Budh Nagar in UP and Nagpur in Maharashtra-Central Excise Circular No. 917 Implementation of the provisions of COTP Act, 2003 and The Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Rules, 2008- Empowering the Customs & Central Excise Officers-Central Excise Circular No. 918 Toilet linen and kitchen linen, of terry toweling or similar terry fabric, of cotton and of other textile materials added in Focus Product Scheme for exports made after 1st Jan 2010-DGFT PN 46 TDS on payment of interest on time deposits under Section 194A of the Income Tax Act by banks following Core-Branch Banking Solutions software-Income Tax Circular No.3 Tariff value for import of Brass scrap is 3732 and for poppy seeds 4640-Customs Non-Tariff Notification No.19 Duty Credit Scrips can also be used / debited towards payment of Customs Duties in case of EO defaults under Authorizations issued under Chapters 4 and 5 of the Policy-DGFT Notification No.32 SC Ruling-the nature of roll over premium charge incurred by the assessee as also the scope and applicability of Section 43A of the Income Tax Act, 1961, in the context of such charges-we find no merit in the contention of the assessee that roll over charges have nothing to do with the fluctuation in the rate of exchange-AIT-2010-75-SC Pre-authentication of excise invoices dispensed with Excise duty on Goggles and OTS cans hiked to 10 per cent av gas and mosquito net impregnated with insecticides subjected to 4 per cent excise Outright exemption from additional duty of customs (of 4%) leviable under sub-section (5) of section 3 of the Customs Tariff Act, 1975 to goods imported in a pre-packaged form and intended for retail sale Benefit of allowing Cenvat credit to be reversed on proportionate basis (when common inputs are used for the manufacture of dutiable and exempt products) extended retrospectively Bad News for flat bookers-unless the entire consideration for the property is paid after the completion of construction (i.e. after issuance of completion certificate by the competent authority), the activity of construction would be deemed to be a taxable service provided by the builder/promoter/developer to the prospective buyer and the service tax would be charged accordingly Bad News for ladies-sanitary napkins & kids diapers subjected to 10 per cent excise excise duty @ 4% imposed on specified IT products like microprocessor other than motherboards, floppy disc drives, CD-Rom drive etc when these items are meant for external use with a computer or laptop as a plug-in device Packaged software or canned software exempted from excise excise duty on Cartons, boxes and cases, of corrugated paper or paperboard manufactured by Standalone manufacturers lowered from 8% to 4% all ceramic tiles, whether manufactured by using electricity for firing the kiln or not, will attract a single excise duty rate of 10% process of drawing or redrawing of aluminium tubes and pipes as amounting to " manufacture" Excise duty on replaceable kits of all domestic water filters except those operating on RO technology reduced from 8% to 4% Excise duty exemption on parts, components and accessories of mobile handsets including cellular phones extended to parts of two accessories namely, battery chargers and hands-free headphones of these devices.

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CIRCULAR NO 111/05/2009-ST

Dated: February 24, 2009

Subject: Applicability of the provisions of the Export of Services Rules, 2005 in certain situations

In terms of rule 3 (2) (a) of the Export of Services Rules 2005, a taxable service shall be treated as export of service if "such service is provided from India and used outside India" Instances have come to notice that certain activities, illustrations of which are given below, are denied the benefit of export of services and the refund of service tax under rule 5 of the Cenvat Credit Rules, 2004 [notification No. 5/2006-CE (NT) dated 14.03.2006] on the ground that these activities do not satisfy the condition 'used outside India',-

(i) Call centres engaged by foreign companies who attend to calls from customers or prospective customers from all around the world including from India;

(ii) Medical transcription where the case history of a patient as dictated by the doctor abroad is typed out in India and forwarded back to him;

(iii) Indian agents who undertake marketing in India of goods of a foreign seller. In this case, the agent undertakes all activities within India and receives commission for his services from foreign seller in convertible foreign exchange;

(iv) Foreign financial institution desiring transfer of remittances to India, engaging an Indian organisation to dispatch such remittances to the receiver in India. For this, the foreign financial institution pays commission to the Indian organisation in foreign exchange for the entire activity being undertaken in India.

The departmental officers seem to have taken a view in such cases that since the activities pertaining to provision of service are undertaken in India, it cannot be said that the use of the service has been outside India.

2. The matter has been examined. Sub-rule (1) of rule 3 of the Export of Services Rule, 2005 categorizes the services into three categories:

(i) Category (I) [Rule 3(1)(i)] : For services (such as Architect service, General Insurance service, Construction service, Site Preparation service) that have some nexus with immovable property, it is provided that the provision of such service would be 'export' if they are provided in relation to an immovable property situated outside India.

(ii) Category (II) [Rule 3(1)(ii)] : For services (such as Rent-a-Cab operator, Market Research Agency service, Survey and Exploration of Minerals service, Convention service, Security Agency service, Storage and Warehousing service) where the place of performance of service can be established, it is provided that provision of such services would be 'export' if they are performed (or even partly performed) outside India.

(iii) Category (III) [Rule 3(1)(iii)] : For the remaining services (that would not fall under category I or II), which would generally include knowledge or technique based services, which are not linked to an identifiable immovable property or whose location of performance cannot be readily identifiable (such as, Banking and Other Financial services, Business Auxiliary services and Telecom services), it has been specified that they would be 'export',-

(a) If they are provided in relation to business or commerce to a recipient located outside India; and

(b) If they are provided in relation to activities other than business or commerce to a recipient located outside India at the time when such services are provided.

3. It is an accepted legal principle that the law has to be read harmoniously so as to avoid contradictions within a legislation. Keeping this principle in view, the meaning of the term 'used outside India' has to be understood in the context of the characteristics of a particular category of service as mentioned in sub-rule (1) of rule 3. For example, under Architect service (a Category I service [Rule 3(1)(i)]), even if an Indian architect prepares a design sitting in India for a property located in U.K. and hands it over to the owner of such property having his business and residence in India, it would have to be presumed that service has been used outside India. Similarly, if an Indian event manager (a Category II service [Rule 3(1)(ii)]) arranges a seminar for an Indian company in U.K. the service has to be treated to have been used outside India because the place of performance is U.K. even though the benefit of such a seminar may flow back to the employees serving the company in India. For the services that fall under Category III [Rule 3(1)(iii)], the relevant factor is the location of the service receiver and not the place of performance. In this context, the phrase 'used outside India' is to be interpreted to mean that the benefit of the service should accrue outside India. Thus, for Category III services [Rule 3(1)(iii)], it is possible that export of service may take place even when all the relevant activities take place in India so long as the benefits of these services accrue outside India. In all the illustrations mentioned in the opening paragraph, what is accruing outside India is the benefit in terms of promotion of business of a foreign company. Similar would be the treatment for other Category III [Rule 3(1)(iii)] services as well.

4. All pending cases may be disposed of accordingly. In case any difficulty is faced in implementing these instructions, the same may be brought to the notice of the undersigned. These instructions should be given wide publicity among trade and field officers.

5. Please acknowledge receipt.

6. Hindi version follows.

F.No.137/307/2007-CX.4 (Pt.)

(Gautam Bhattacharya)
Commissioner (Service Tax)