 New Delhi: Bharti Airtel, the country's largest mobile services provider by subscribers, faces an income tax demand of Rs 1,067 crore on its overseas operations. The Income Tax department on Wednesday served Airtel the notice for allegedly not paying taxes on its payments to international operators for the previous four financial years.
The department has asked Airtel to pay Rs 1,067.24 crore in taxes under sections 201 (consequences of failure to deduct or pay taxes) along with section 195 (any person responsible for paying to a non-resident) of the Income Tax Act.
Airtel said it would take legal action against the notice. A company spokesman said: "Bharti Airtel is fully compliant on all applicable income-tax provisions. This demand notice, pertaining to the applicability of withholding tax on payments made to international operators, is not justified and we will take appropriate legal recourse."
The payments, which the department said are to be made immediately, are for four financial years - 2007-08 (Rs 202.07 crore), 2008-09 (Rs 329.913 crore), 2009-10 (Rs 313.577 crore) and 2010-11 (Rs 221.681 crore) in lieu of payments made by the company to "non-resident mobile service providers".
The international taxation unit of the department has held that such payments are in nature of fee for technical services and are subjected to TDS deductions as per section 195 of the I-T Act, PTI reported. The department, in its notice, also said that for payments of such taxes, the location of the company's property or place of conducting the operations is not "relevant".
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