Google India gets relief in deposit against income tax demand from High Court.

Google India gets relief in deposit against income tax demand from High Court. The High Court reduced the deposit to 30% against the outstanding tax demand from 50% as directed by the ITAT

ABCAUS Case Law Citation:
ABCAUS 2020 (2017) (08) HC

Brief Facts of the Case:

The petitioner-company M/s. Google India Pvt. Ltd. was aggrieved by the stay order passed by the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) directing the Internet Search Giant to deposit 50% of the impugned tax demand and out of such 50% of the tax demand, 20% was directed to be deposited within seven days and balance amount was to be paid within 180 days in six equal installments.

In view of the pendency of the cases, the Hon’ble High Court did not incline to go into the merit of the case and opined that they deserve to be heard by the Tribunal itself. However the ITAT was requested to decide the pending appeals expeditiously, preferably within a period of six months.

The Counsel for the petitioner-company referred to paragraph of the impugned order of the ITAT towards the suggestion of the ITAT that the Tribunal could stay the demand, subject to the condition of payment of 30% of the total tax demand, which, however was not accepted by the petitioner-company.

It was submitted that the company should be allowed to abide by the suggestion of the ITAT as stated in the impugned order and the petitioner company would be willing to deposit 30% of the total tax demand as indicated by the ITAT itself and the remaining 10% of the said demand may be directed to be deposited within a period of one month, since 20% of the total demand which was required to be deposited within seven days of the order passed by the ITAT stood deposited by the petitioner-company.

The Hon’ble High Court observed that the said prayer was found to be in tune with the suggestion of the Bench of ITAT itself in its order. The Hon’ble High Court stated that even though, it was not inclined to interfere with the aforesaid interlocutory interim order passed by the ITAT but in the facts and circumstances of the case, the said submission could be accepted even at this stage, coupled with the request made to the Tribunal to decide the present appeal as well as the connected appeals expeditiously.

Accordingly, the Hon’ble High Court made a slight modification of the direction given by the Tribunal that instead of 50% of the total tax demand, the petitioner-company may deposit 30% of the said total tax demand disputed before the learned Tribunal and if the petitioner company has already deposited 20% of the tax demand in view of the direction of the Tribunal, remaining 10% of the same to be deposited by the petitioner-company within the period of one month.