Saturday, October 4, 2014

Sums paid by TPA to hospitals for settlement of mediclaim won’t attract rigours of sec. 194J TDS


Where assessee-third party administrator, settled mediclaim of insured and arranged said amount from insurance company, it was not liable to deduct tax against said payment and, therefore, no disallowance under section 40(a)(ia) could be made.

Facts:


a)The assessee was carrying on business of Third Party Administrator (TPA). During the assessment proceedings, the Assessing Officer (‘AO) noted that the assessee had paid certain amounts to hospitals for settlement of claim of insurance for rendering medical services.

b)The AO was of the view that the assessee was bound to deduct tax at source under Section 194J on such payments. Accordingly, the AO disallowed impugned payments under section 40(a)(ia) for non-deduction of tax.

c)On appeal, the CIT(A) granted part relief to the assessee by holding that section 40(a)(ia) is applicable to the amount payable by the assessee to the hospital and not to the amount already paid by the assessee to the hospital.

The Tribunal held in favour of assessee as under:

1)Though the assessee was under the obligation to deduct tax under section 194J, yet the disallowance under section 40(a)(ia) could not be triggered when the assessee had not claimed the impugned payment as deductible expenditure.

2)The assessee had shown the income relating to only the service charges receivable from insurance companies for rendering services as TPA. The assessee was not getting any margin or profit element in the payment received from the insurers for the purpose of remitting it to the hospitals to settle medical claim.

3)Therefore, when the said payment had not been claimed as expenditure then the provisions of section 40(a)(ia) were not attracted for non-deduction of tax at source.- PARAMOUNT HEALTH SERVICES (TPA) (P.) LTD. V. ITO [2014] 49 taxmann.com 97 (Mumbai - Trib.)