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Shree Choudhary Transport Co. v. Income Tax Officer

Civil Appeal · 2020 INSC 468Decided 29 Jul 2020
Civil Appeal No. 7865 of 2009
Justice A.M. Khanwilkar · Justice Dinesh Maheshwari

Background

The appellant, a transport contracting firm, collected payments from a cement company for transporting goods and paid out part of those amounts to individual truck owners/operators hired for each consignment, without deducting tax at source (TDS) on these payments as required under Section 194C of the Income Tax Act. The Assessing Officer disallowed Rs. 57,11,625 of these payments as a deduction from the firm's taxable income under Section 40(a)(ia) for failure to deduct TDS, and this was upheld by the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal and the Rajasthan High Court. The firm appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing it had no sub-contracts with the truck owners and so was not obliged to deduct TDS, and separately argued that later, more lenient amendments to the law should apply retrospectively to save it from disallowance.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the relationship between the transport firm and the individual truck owners engaged for each consignment amounted to a contract/sub-contract under Section 194C, triggering the obligation to deduct TDS once payment for a single transaction crossed the threshold. The Court rejected the firm's argument that disallowance under Section 40(a)(ia) applied only to amounts still outstanding at year-end, holding it also covers amounts already paid out during the year. It further held that a 2014 amendment relaxing the disallowance rule was not retrospective and could not rescue the appellant, distinguishing it from an earlier 2010 amendment the Court had separately treated as curative and retrospective. Finding no genuine hardship to the appellant since only the unauthorised-deduction portion of its income was disallowed, the Court dismissed the appeal with costs.

Lesson Learnt

Anyone running a business that hires sub-contractors or pays out large sums to third parties (such as truck owners or labour contractors) must deduct tax at source once payments for a single job cross the statutory threshold, failing to do so can mean losing the tax deduction on that entire expense, not just facing a penalty.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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