John Deere Eqipment P. Ltd.,, Pune vs Deputy Director Of Income-Tax,, on 23 January, 2019
definition of ‗royalty' under DTAA, obviously includes software and he further
observed that there was no requirement of transfer of copyright for treating the
payment as ‗royalty' under DTAA. The Assessing Officer further observed that the
payment received for supply of software was taxable as ‗royalty' and in turn, relied
on different decisions including the decision of the Hon'ble High Court of Karnataka
in CIT Vs. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (supra). In the absence of agreement
being available with the Assessing Officer, the findings of Assessing Officer that
software was in nature of literary or scientific work, cannot stand. When going into
the aspect of purchase of software being royalty or not, the issue which has to be
seen is whether the assessee had purchased copyright or copyrighted articles. The
purchase of software by a person cannot be held to be work of literary or scientific
work. There is no merit in the observations of Assessing Officer in this regard and
the same are dismissed.