The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), Chennai bench, while granting relief to Matrimony.com, has held that TDS shall not be paid on advertisement expenses paid to online platforms including Facebook Ireland.
The assessee company is engaged in the business of providing services in connection with marriage alliance and related services. The company markets its product both through online and offline advertisements. During the year, the company has availed the services of Facebook, Ireland Ltd., for advertisement in order to promote the business of matrimony incurred advertisement cost of Rs. 2,45,32,108/-. The AO during the course of assessment proceedings, on examination of financials noted that the assessee has not deducted TDS towards advertisement charges paid to Facebook, Ireland Ltd., and according to the provisions of Section 195I of the Act and hence, applying the provisions of section 40(a)(i) of the Act, disallowed the advertisement charges paid to Facebook.
A bench of Shri Mahavir Singh, Vice President and Shri Manoj Kumar Aggarwal, Accountant Member relied on a catena of judgments and noted that “the ITAT, Bangalore in the case of Urban Ladder Home Décor Solutions Pvt. Ltd., in IT(TP)A Nos.615 to 620/Bang/2020 considered the decision of Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Engineering Analysis Centre of Excellence Pvt. Ltd., vs. CIT, Civil Appeal Nos.8733-8734 of 2018, dated March 02, 2021 (125 taxmann.com 42) wherein the Hon’ble Supreme Court exactly on same facts held that there is no requirement to deduct tax at source from the advertisement payments made for using the information technology facility u/s.195 of the Act.”
“From the above, it is seen that the facts are exactly identical and hence, respectfully following, we delete the disallowance and allow this issue of assessee’s appeals,” the bench concluded.
Shri Chirag Shah, AR appeared on behalf of the assessee.
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