Appeals To Be or Not to Be is Not the Question

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The Tax Publishers Income Tax--Appeals To Be or Not to Be is Not the Question Srivatsan Ranganathan What is fact and what is a point of law is debatable. Each one has his own views on this. The author has reviewed two contrasting recent decisions by the Apex Court in this write up. 1. Framework Appeals to the High Court and to the Supreme Court are possible only on questions of law under the Income tax act, 1961. What is a question of law and what is a question of fact itself depends on case to case basis. Questions of fact will remain with the ITAT as the final fact finding authority and cannot travel beyond ITAT. Thus is the framework of judicial review as prescribed by the tax law. On 19th April 2023 the Apex Court addressed two tangential views on this point but on two different spheres. A lot of reading has been going on the same. We are examining the finer prints of the two verdicts and as to how far can the question of fact travel to High Court/Supreme Court. 2. Travelport decision The issue of hosting remote run servers in India at agent/client's premises and enabling computerized airline ticket reservations through these remotely operated servers was read to trigger a place Permanent Establishment (PE) and a Dependant Agency Permanent Establishment as well for assessee Travelport Inc in India. SUBSCRIBE FOR FULL CONTENT

The Tax Publishers

Income Tax--Appeals

To Be or Not to Be is Not the Question

Srivatsan Ranganathan

What is fact and what is a point of law is debatable. Each one has his own views on this. The author has reviewed two contrasting recent decisions by the Apex Court in this write up.

1. Framework

Appeals to the High Court and to the Supreme Court are possible only on questions of law under the Income tax act, 1961. What is a question of law and what is a question of fact itself depends on case to case basis. Questions of fact will remain with the ITAT as the final fact finding authority and cannot travel beyond ITAT. Thus is the framework of judicial review as prescribed by the tax law.

On 19th April 2023 the Apex Court addressed two tangential views on this point but on two different spheres. A lot of reading has been going on the same. We are examining the finer prints of the two verdicts and as to how far can the question of fact travel to High Court/Supreme Court.

2. Travelport decision

The issue of hosting remote run servers in India at agent/client's premises and enabling computerized airline ticket reservations through these remotely operated servers was read to trigger a place Permanent Establishment (PE) and a Dependant Agency Permanent Establishment as well for assessee Travelport Inc in India.