Monday, September 28, 2015

Roaming facility doesn’t require human intervention; roaming charges paid by Telecos aren’t ‘FTS’

The provision of roaming services do not require any human intervention and accordingly, cannot be construed as technical services. Thus, payment of roaming charges by telephone operator does not fall under the ambit of TDS provisions under section 194J.



The disputed issue was:


Whether sum paid by telecom operator towards roaming facility provided by other telecom operators would be liable to TDS either under section 194J or section 194C or section 194-I?

The Tribunal held as under:


a)    Human intervention is required only for installation, setting up, repairing, servicing, maintenance, capacity augmentation of the network. When one of the subscribers in the assessee's circle travels to the jurisdiction of another circle, the call gets connected automatically without any human intervention and it is for this, the roaming charges is paid by the assessee to the Visiting Operator for providing this service. Hence payment of roaming charges cannot be construed as technical services, thus, it does not fall under the ambit of TDS provisions u/s 194J.

b)    The word 'work' in section 194C referred to and comprehends only the activities of workman. It is the physical force which has comprehended in the word 'work'. Since the payment of roaming charges does not require any human intervention. Hence, the provisions of section 194C are not applicable to the impugned issue.

c)  The assessee cannot be said to have used the equipment which is involved in providing the roaming facility. The assessee collects the roaming charges from its subscriber and passes it on to the other service provider. Therefore, the payment of roaming charges by the assessee to other service provider cannot be considered as rent within the meaning of section 194I of the Act. - Vodafone East Ltd. v. Ad. CIT [2015] 61 taxmann.com 263 (Kolkata - Trib.)