The TDS officer says our consultant doctors are really employees, that their fees are salary, and that we should have deducted under s.192 instead of s.194J. Is he right?
Not on these facts. The hospital engaged Hospital Based Consultants and deducted under s.194J. The Assessing Officer held they were employees, that s.192 applied, and passed orders under s.201 treating the hospital as in default; the Commissioner (Appeals) and the Tribunal went against him on that point and the Revenue appealed under s.260A. The Bombay High Court held the question squarely covered by its own earlier Division Bench decision in Commissioner of Income-tax (TDS), Pune v Grant Medical Foundation (Ruby Hall Clinic), where the same Court had held that no relationship of employer and employee existed between a hospital and its consultant doctors and had answered the question in favour of the assessee. No substantial question of law arose, and all six appeals were dismissed with no order as to costs. Questions on s.194C versus s.194J for outsourced services and on drug handling charges were held to turn on findings of fact, and a question on the time limit for orders under s.201(1) was left open as academic.
Decided by the High Court (High Court of Judicature at Bombay — S.C. Dharmadhikari and B.P. Colabawalla JJ. The judgment was delivered by Colabawalla J.) on 2019-02-22, reported as Income Tax Appeal Nos. 105, 112, 115, 116, 121 and 128 of 2016 under s.260A, against the orders of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Mumbai dated 6 February 2015 and 10 February 2015. It bears on section 192, section 194J, section 194C, section 194H, section 201(1), section 201(1A), section 260A, section 392 (Act of 2025), section 393 (Act of 2025) of the Income Tax Act 1961, in TDS Defaults and Salary & Perquisites matters.
A TDS survey on a hospital almost always opens on the consultant doctors, because the difference between s.192 and s.194J on a large panel is a demand the hospital cannot pass on: it is the deductor who is treated as in default under s.201, with interest under s.201(1A) running from the date the tax was deductible. This decision is the Bombay authority a hospital reaches for, and its value is that it is short and it is a High Court refusing to let the Revenue reopen a factual finding under s.260A. Take the lesson that follows from that. The outcome here was decided at the Commissioner (Appeals) and Tribunal stages, on the terms of the engagements; the High Court did no more than refuse to disturb it. So the work is in the documents, and it has to be done before the first order under s.201 is passed, not after. The list is short and it is the same list every time: provident fund, gratuity, leave, a retirement age, and freedom to practise privately. A hospital that can answer those five questions the way this hospital could is in a strong position; a hospital whose consultants are on the payroll in everything but name should expect s.192 and should plan for it rather than argue about it.
Binding within that High Court's jurisdiction. Persuasive elsewhere.
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The assessee runs the P.D. Hinduja Hospital and Medical Research Centre and engages doctors described in the proceedings as Hospital Based Consultants. It deducted tax from their fees under s.194J. On a TDS examination the Assessing Officer held that the Hospital Based Consultants were employees of the assessee and that tax was therefore required to be deducted under s.192, and he passed orders under s.201 holding the assessee to be in default on that and other counts and raising a demand; the judgment records one of them, dated 24 March 2011, as made under s.201(1A). Other counts concerned payments to Hinduja TMT and Hinduja Global Solutions Ltd, on which the Revenue said s.194J applied rather than s.194C, drug handling charges, which the Revenue said were commission attracting s.194H, and payments in respect of employees of the Hinduja Foundation who had worked with the assessee. The Commissioner (Appeals) and then the Tribunal, by orders of 6 February 2015 and 10 February 2015, dismissed the Revenue's appeals and partly allowed the assessee's. The Revenue appealed to the High Court under s.260A. Its case on the consultants was that the Tribunal had gone wrong in not treating them as employees, that “the relationship between the HBCs and the assessee was purely that of an employer and an employee” and that the remuneration “was in the nature of ‘salary’ which would attract the provisions of Section 192 of the Act”, the Assessing Officer and the Commissioner (Appeals) having taken note of the salient features of the terms of engagement and concluded that the consultants were at least fixed-period or part-time contract employees.
All the appeals were dismissed with no order as to costs. On the consultants, the Court accepted the assessee's submission that the question was covered: “We find that a Division Bench of this Court in the case of Commissioner of Income-tax (TDS Pune) (ITXA No.140 of 2013) (supra) and to which one of us was a party (S. C. Dharmadhikari, J), was considering whether the Tribunal was correct in holding that there exists no relationship of employer and employee between the assessee - Grant Medical Foundation (Ruby Hall Clinic) and the Consultant doctors employed in the hospital. After perusing the law on the subject, this Court answered the aforesaid question in favour of the assessee and against the revenue.” No substantial question of law therefore arose on that issue, and the s.192 case failed. On the payments to Hinduja TMT and Hinduja Global Solutions the Court held the findings of the Commissioner (Appeals) and the Tribunal “are purely factual in nature” and did not “suffer from any perversity that would give rise to any substantial question of law”. On drug handling charges it was “fully satisfied that in the facts of the present case, the assessee correctly deducted TDS under section 194C”. On the question whether orders under s.201(1) for the financial year commencing 1 April 2007 and earlier years were time-barred, raised in three of the appeals, the Court said the question “really becomes academic in the facts of the present case” and that it did “not propose to give any finding on this question and leave it open to be considered in an appropriate case”.
The reasoning is short because the Court treated the point as settled by its own earlier decision, so the working test has to be taken from Grant Medical Foundation, decided by this Court on 22 January 2015 in Income Tax Appeal No. 140 of 2013, one member of the Bench being common to both. There the Court applied the distinction between a contract of service and a contract for services in the words the Supreme Court had used in Indian Medical Association v V.P. Shantha, which it set out: a contract for services is one where a party undertakes to render services, such as professional or technical services, “in the performance of which he is not subject to detailed direction and control but exercises professional or technical skill and uses his own knowledge and discretion”, while a contract of service “implies relationship of master and servant and involves an obligation to obey orders in the work to be performed and as to its mode and manner of performance”. The Court there said the contract “would have to be read as a whole” and in the setting of an engagement for a particular purpose and time, and the facts that decided it were that the consultants were “not entitled to provident fund or any terminal benefits” and were “free to carry on their private practice” outside the hospital's timings, some being paid a fixed amount with a variable element and one being guaranteed only a minimum monthly professional or referral fee. The officer had reasoned the other way from the incidents of control — hospital rules, a confidentiality clause, the management's decision in a dispute being final, and periodic review of performance — and that reasoning did not survive. The Court held the Tribunal right that “merely because they are required to spend certain fixed time at the hospital, treating fixed number of patients at the hospital, attend them as out patients and Indoor patients does not mean that a employer-employee relationship can be culled out or inferred”. That is the test the present decision applies without restating, and it is why the Revenue's emphasis on a regular monthly figure did not carry the appeals.
We find that a Division Bench of this Court in the case of Commissioner of Income-tax (TDS Pune) (ITXA No.140 of 2013) (supra) and to which one of us was a party (S. C. Dharmadhikari, J), was considering whether the Tribunal was correct in holding that there exists no relationship of employer and employee between the assessee - Grant Medical Foundation (Ruby Hall Clinic) and the Consultant doctors employed in the hospital. After perusing the law on the subject, this Court answered the aforesaid question in favour of the assessee and against the revenue.
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Handle my notice → Ask a CA on WhatsAppNot on these facts. The hospital engaged Hospital Based Consultants and deducted under s.194J. The Assessing Officer held they were employees, that s.192 applied, and passed orders under s.201 treating the hospital as in default; the Commissioner (Appeals) and the Tribunal went against him on that point and the Revenue appealed under s.260A. The Bombay High Court held the question squarely covered by its own earlier Division Bench decision in Commissioner of Income-tax (TDS), Pune v Grant Medical Foundation (Ruby Hall Clinic), where the same Court had held that no relationship of employer and employee existed between a hospital and its consultant doctors and had answered the question in favour of the assessee. No substantial question of law arose, and all six appeals were dismissed with no order as to costs. Questions on s.194C versus s.194J for outsourced services and on drug handling charges were held to turn on findings of fact, and a question on the time limit for orders under s.201(1) was left open as academic. This was decided by the High Court (High Court of Judicature at Bombay — S.C. Dharmadhikari and B.P. Colabawalla JJ. The judgment was delivered by Colabawalla J.) and bears on section 192, section 194J, section 194C, section 194H, section 201(1), section 201(1A), section 260A, section 392 (Act of 2025), section 393 (Act of 2025) of the Income Tax Act 1961. It is reported as Income Tax Appeal Nos. 105, 112, 115, 116, 121 and 128 of 2016 under s.260A, against the orders of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Mumbai dated 6 February 2015 and 10 February 2015. A TDS survey on a hospital almost always opens on the consultant doctors, because the difference between s.192 and s.194J on a large panel is a demand the hospital cannot pass on: it is the deductor who is treated as in default under s.201, with interest under s.201(1A) running from the date the tax was deductible. This decision is the Bombay authority a hospital reaches for, and its value is that it is short and it is a High Court refusing to let the Revenue reopen a factual finding under s.260A. Take the lesson that follows from that. The outcome here was decided at the Commissioner (Appeals) and Tribunal stages, on the terms of the engagements; the High Court did no more than refuse to disturb it. So the work is in the documents, and it has to be done before the first order under s.201 is passed, not after. The list is short and it is the same list every time: provident fund, gratuity, leave, a retirement age, and freedom to practise privately. A hospital that can answer those five questions the way this hospital could is in a strong position; a hospital whose consultants are on the payroll in everything but name should expect s.192 and should plan for it rather than argue about it. If it applies to you, the first step is this: Produce the consultant agreements first, not the pay records. The Bombay line turns on the terms of the engagement read as a whole, and a TDS officer who has only seen a monthly figure has seen the least important fact.
The assessee runs the P.D. Hinduja Hospital and Medical Research Centre and engages doctors described in the proceedings as Hospital Based Consultants. It deducted tax from their fees under s.194J. On a TDS examination the Assessing Officer held that the Hospital Based Consultants were employees of the assessee and that tax was therefore required to be deducted under s.192, and he passed orders under s.201 holding the assessee to be in default on that and other counts and raising a demand; the judgment records one of them, dated 24 March 2011, as made under s.201(1A). Other counts concerned payments to Hinduja TMT and Hinduja Global Solutions Ltd, on which the Revenue said s.194J applied rather than s.194C, drug handling charges, which the Revenue said were commission attracting s.194H, and payments in respect of employees of the Hinduja Foundation who had worked with the assessee. The Commissioner (Appeals) and then the Tribunal, by orders of 6 February 2015 and 10 February 2015, dismissed the Revenue's appeals and partly allowed the assessee's. The Revenue appealed to the High Court under s.260A. Its case on the consultants was that the Tribunal had gone wrong in not treating them as employees, that “the relationship between the HBCs and the assessee was purely that of an employer and an employee” and that the remuneration “was in the nature of ‘salary’ which would attract the provisions of Section 192 of the Act”, the Assessing Officer and the Commissioner (Appeals) having taken note of the salient features of the terms of engagement and concluded that the consultants were at least fixed-period or part-time contract employees. The matter was decided on 2019-02-22 by the High Court (High Court of Judicature at Bombay — S.C. Dharmadhikari and B.P. Colabawalla JJ. The judgment was delivered by Colabawalla J.). On those facts the High Court held as follows. All the appeals were dismissed with no order as to costs. On the consultants, the Court accepted the assessee's submission that the question was covered: “We find that a Division Bench of this Court in the case of Commissioner of Income-tax (TDS Pune) (ITXA No.140 of 2013) (supra) and to which one of us was a party (S. C. Dharmadhikari, J), was considering whether the Tribunal was correct in holding that there exists no relationship of employer and employee between the assessee - Grant Medical Foundation (Ruby Hall Clinic) and the Consultant doctors employed in the hospital. After perusing the law on the subject, this Court answered the aforesaid question in favour of the assessee and against the revenue.” No substantial question of law therefore arose on that issue, and the s.192 case failed. On the payments to Hinduja TMT and Hinduja Global Solutions the Court held the findings of the Commissioner (Appeals) and the Tribunal “are purely factual in nature” and did not “suffer from any perversity that would give rise to any substantial question of law”. On drug handling charges it was “fully satisfied that in the facts of the present case, the assessee correctly deducted TDS under section 194C”. On the question whether orders under s.201(1) for the financial year commencing 1 April 2007 and earlier years were time-barred, raised in three of the appeals, the Court said the question “really becomes academic in the facts of the present case” and that it did “not propose to give any finding on this question and leave it open to be considered in an appropriate case”.
The reasoning is short because the Court treated the point as settled by its own earlier decision, so the working test has to be taken from Grant Medical Foundation, decided by this Court on 22 January 2015 in Income Tax Appeal No. 140 of 2013, one member of the Bench being common to both. There the Court applied the distinction between a contract of service and a contract for services in the words the Supreme Court had used in Indian Medical Association v V.P. Shantha, which it set out: a contract for services is one where a party undertakes to render services, such as professional or technical services, “in the performance of which he is not subject to detailed direction and control but exercises professional or technical skill and uses his own knowledge and discretion”, while a contract of service “implies relationship of master and servant and involves an obligation to obey orders in the work to be performed and as to its mode and manner of performance”. The Court there said the contract “would have to be read as a whole” and in the setting of an engagement for a particular purpose and time, and the facts that decided it were that the consultants were “not entitled to provident fund or any terminal benefits” and were “free to carry on their private practice” outside the hospital's timings, some being paid a fixed amount with a variable element and one being guaranteed only a minimum monthly professional or referral fee. The officer had reasoned the other way from the incidents of control — hospital rules, a confidentiality clause, the management's decision in a dispute being final, and periodic review of performance — and that reasoning did not survive. The Court held the Tribunal right that “merely because they are required to spend certain fixed time at the hospital, treating fixed number of patients at the hospital, attend them as out patients and Indoor patients does not mean that a employer-employee relationship can be culled out or inferred”. That is the test the present decision applies without restating, and it is why the Revenue's emphasis on a regular monthly figure did not carry the appeals. In the words reproduced by the source cited on this page: "We find that a Division Bench of this Court in the case of Commissioner of Income-tax (TDS Pune) (ITXA No.140 of 2013) (supra) and to which one of us was a party (S. C. Dharmadhikari, J), was considering whether the Tribunal was correct in holding that there exists no relationship of employer and employee between the assessee - Grant Medical Foundation (Ruby Hall Clinic) and the Consultant doctors employed in the hospital. After perusing the law on the subject, this Court answered the aforesaid question in favour of the assessee and against the revenue."
It was decided by the High Court on 2019-02-22 and is reported as Income Tax Appeal Nos. 105, 112, 115, 116, 121 and 128 of 2016 under s.260A, against the orders of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Mumbai dated 6 February 2015 and 10 February 2015. Binding within that High Court's jurisdiction. Persuasive elsewhere. A High Court decision binds the assessing officer, the Commissioner (Appeals) and the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal within that state, and is persuasive elsewhere. If your assessment is in a different jurisdiction, check whether your own High Court has taken the same view before relying on it. On section 192, section 194J, section 194C, section 194H, section 201(1), section 201(1A), section 260A, section 392 (Act of 2025), section 393 (Act of 2025), the practical question is whether the facts of your own notice match the facts of this case closely enough for the same rule to apply.
It helps the taxpayer. All the appeals were dismissed with no order as to costs. On the consultants, the Court accepted the assessee's submission that the question was covered: “We find that a Division Bench of this Court in the case of Commissioner of Income-tax (TDS Pune) (ITXA No.140 of 2013) (supra) and to which one of us was a party (S. C. Dharmadhikari, J), was considering whether the Tribunal was correct in holding that there exists no relationship of employer and employee between the assessee - Grant Medical Foundation (Ruby Hall Clinic) and the Consultant doctors employed in the hospital. After perusing the law on the subject, this Court answered the aforesaid question in favour of the assessee and against the revenue.” No substantial question of law therefore arose on that issue, and the s.192 case failed. On the payments to Hinduja TMT and Hinduja Global Solutions the Court held the findings of the Commissioner (Appeals) and the Tribunal “are purely factual in nature” and did not “suffer from any perversity that would give rise to any substantial question of law”. On drug handling charges it was “fully satisfied that in the facts of the present case, the assessee correctly deducted TDS under section 194C”. On the question whether orders under s.201(1) for the financial year commencing 1 April 2007 and earlier years were time-barred, raised in three of the appeals, the Court said the question “really becomes academic in the facts of the present case” and that it did “not propose to give any finding on this question and leave it open to be considered in an appropriate case”. It arises in TDS Defaults and Salary & Perquisites matters, on section 192, section 194J, section 194C, section 194H, section 201(1), section 201(1A), section 260A, section 392 (Act of 2025), section 393 (Act of 2025) of the Income Tax Act 1961, and was decided by High Court of Judicature at Bombay — S.C. Dharmadhikari and B.P. Colabawalla JJ. The judgment was delivered by Colabawalla J.. Before relying on it, read the source linked on this page and check whether it has since been distinguished, overruled or overtaken by an amendment to the Income Tax Act. In practice the steps that follow from it are these. Go through the benefits list item by item and record the answer to each: provident fund, gratuity and terminal benefits, leave, a retirement age, and whether the consultant is free to practise privately outside the hospital's hours. Absence of the benefits and freedom to practise are what carried Grant Medical Foundation. Do not rely on the label in the contract. The Court reads the contract as a whole against the nature of the engagement, so a document headed “appointment” with none of the incidents of employment is not salary, and a “consultancy” with all of them may well be. Separate the categories of doctor before you argue. Full-time salaried doctors, fixed-plus-variable consultants and purely fee-sharing visiting consultants are different arrangements and can attract different answers in the same hospital. Where s.194J is the right section, deduct on the earlier of the event of credit or payment, and keep the Form 26Q reporting consistent with the agreements you will later produce. If an order under s.201(1) and s.201(1A) has already been passed, take the limitation point separately; the Court left the time limit for such orders for an earlier financial year open, so it is still available to be argued. Where the TDS officer's case rests on findings of the Assessing Officer alone, remember that the appellate findings here were treated as factual and not open in a s.260A appeal — the fight is worth having at the Commissioner (Appeals) and Tribunal stages, not saved for the High Court.
Still good law. Nothing doubting it was found, and it sits in a settled Bombay line. It follows Commissioner of Income-tax (TDS), Pune v Grant Medical Foundation (Ruby Hall Clinic), Income Tax Appeal No. 140 of 2013, assessment year 2008-09, decided 22 January 2015 by S.C. Dharmadhikari and Sunil P. Deshmukh JJ, where the Revenue's appeal raised questions on s.201 and s.201(1A) and on the employer-employee relationship, and the Court, taking the hospital's doctors in groups according to the shape of their pay and their contracts, held the Tribunal right to reverse the Assessing Officer and the Commissioner and dismissed the appeal with no order as to costs. The same line was applied again eleven days after this decision. In Commissioner of Income Tax (TDS-1), Mumbai v Asian Heart Institute and Research Centre Private Limited, Income Tax Appeal No. 676 of 2018, decided 5 March 2019 by Akil Kureshi and M.S. Sanklecha JJ, the Revenue raised the same two questions — whether s.194C or s.194J applied to annual maintenance contracts for hospital equipment, and whether payments to full-time consultant doctors fell under s.194J or s.192 — and the Court, relying on Grant Medical Foundation, held that “in the result no question of law arises” and dismissed the appeal. Three Bombay decisions in four years, all the same way, and no contrary High Court decision was found. What the line does not give is a rule. Each of the three decisions rests on the terms of the particular engagement, and in Grant Medical Foundation the Court said in terms that the contract has to be read as a whole. A hospital whose consultants draw only a fixed monthly sum, receive provident fund and gratuity, and are barred from private practice is on the other side of the line, and the Revenue's own authorities in Grant Medical Foundation were of exactly that kind. On the boundary: the Income-tax Act, 1961 was repealed on 1 April 2026 by s.536(1) of the Income-tax Act, 2025, and s.536(2) continues it for proceedings in respect of any tax year beginning before that date, so this decision still governs a TDS default for those years. For a tax year beginning on or after 1 April 2026 the salary provision is s.392 of the 2025 Act and the charge on fees for professional services is in the Table in s.393(1). No source could be cited for that finding. Checking whether an authority still stands matters as much as knowing what it held: a decision may be overruled on one point and survive on another, or the provision it interprets may have been amended since. Read the source and the editor's note on this page before relying on it in a reply to an Assessing Officer or in an appeal.
The judgment was read on its own record. It disposes of six appeals under s.260A — Income Tax Appeal Nos. 105, 112, 115, 116, 121 and 128 of 2016 — against Tribunal orders of 6 February 2015 and 10 February 2015, and was delivered by Colabawalla J with Dharmadhikari J on the Bench. Four questions were pressed in ITXA Nos. 105, 115 and 128; those four and a fifth, on the time limit for orders under s.201(1), in ITXA Nos. 116 and 121; and in ITXA No. 112 the first, third, fourth and fifth. The citation strings (2019) 412 ITR 404 and 262 Taxman 240 are printed for a Bombay decision of this name and this year. They are not attached to the appeal numbers in this entry, because the judgment itself does not carry them and a second group of appeals between the same parties — Income Tax Appeal Nos. 1296, 1298, 1433 and 1444 of 2016, before Kureshi and Sanklecha JJ — stood over on 31 January 2019 and is a different set of proceedings. A reader who needs the report should check which of the two the citation belongs to before relying on it. The test is not in this judgment and is not presented as if it were. The Court held the question covered and quoted its own earlier decision; the working distinction between a contract of service and a contract for services, and the facts that decide it, come from Grant Medical Foundation, which was read separately in its own text. The passages set out in the reasoning here are that Court's, and the language about detailed direction and control, professional skill and the obligation to obey orders as to the mode and manner of performance is the language the Supreme Court used in Indian Medical Association v V.P. Shantha, which Grant Medical Foundation set out and applied. This judgment does not itself mention that Supreme Court decision. The Asian Heart Institute decision of 5 March 2019, which is used in the validity note to show the line holding, was read in its own text. It is a different Bench of the same Court, deciding the same two questions, and it too rests on Grant Medical Foundation. Section labels are the provisions the judgment works with: s.192 and s.194J on the consultants, s.194C and s.194H on the other questions, s.201(1) and s.201(1A) for the orders appealed against, and s.260A for the appeal itself. The 2025 Act labels are carried because the boundary paragraph in the validity note names them — s.392 for salary and s.393 for deduction at source on the Table of payments that includes fees for professional services. The judgment does not set out the terms of the consultants' engagements. It records that the Assessing Officer and the Commissioner (Appeals) had taken note of the salient features of those terms, and then decides the question as covered by Grant Medical Foundation, so a reader looking for the facts that make a consultant an employee has to go to that decision rather than to this one. It does not deal with any category of doctor separately, and it does not say what would happen to a hospital whose consultants do receive provident fund or are barred from private practice. It gives no finding on the time limit for an order under s.201(1) for the financial year commencing 1 April 2007 or earlier, expressly leaving that open. And it says nothing about the liability of the doctors themselves, which is not what a s.201 proceeding decides. This library shows the verification state of every entry openly. This entry has not yet been read in full by a chartered accountant. The summary reflects the sources listed on this page. Read the source before you rely on it in a reply to an Assessing Officer or in an appeal before the Commissioner (Appeals) or the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal.
All the appeals were dismissed with no order as to costs. On the consultants, the Court accepted the assessee's submission that the question was covered: “We find that a Division Bench of this Court in the case of Commissioner of Income-tax (TDS Pune) (ITXA No.140 of 2013) (supra) and to which one of us was a party (S. C. Dharmadhikari, J), was considering whether the Tribunal was correct in holding that there exists no relationship of employer and employee between the assessee - Grant Medical Foundation (Ruby Hall Clinic) and the Consultant doctors employed in the hospital. After perusing the law on the subject, this Court answered the aforesaid question in favour of the assessee and against the revenue.” No substantial question of law therefore arose on that issue, and the s.192 case failed. On the payments to Hinduja TMT and Hinduja Global Solutions the Court held the findings of the Commissioner (Appeals) and the Tribunal “are purely factual in nature” and did not “suffer from any perversity that would give rise to any substantial question of law”. On drug handling charges it was “fully satisfied that in the facts of the present case, the assessee correctly deducted TDS under section 194C”. On the question whether orders under s.201(1) for the financial year commencing 1 April 2007 and earlier years were time-barred, raised in three of the appeals, the Court said the question “really becomes academic in the facts of the present case” and that it did “not propose to give any finding on this question and leave it open to be considered in an appropriate case”.
TaxSphere, “Pr. CIT (TDS) v National Health and Education Society — hospital consultants' fees fall under s.194J, not s.192”, https://taxnotice.vittsphere.com/caselaw/case/pcit-tds-v-national-health-and-education-society-consultant-doctors/ (validity last checked 2026-09-23)
The judgment itself is a government work and may be quoted freely. The summary, the validity note and the reasoning on this page are this library's own writing: quote them with attribution, and please do not present either as the words of the court — this page keeps the two apart and so should a quotation of it.
Every entry in this library links to where it was found, so you can check it yourself rather than take our word for it.
Our restaurant and banquet bills carry a tip that the customer adds on the card. The money lands in our bank account and we hand it to the staff with their wages. The department says that is salary we should have deducted on. Is it?
I am the managing director of my own company. I draw a monthly amount, a car allowance and a percentage of gross profits. Is the percentage salary, or can I show it as my own business income?
I run payroll. Section 192 has no threshold and no percentage in it like every other TDS section does — so how much am I supposed to deduct, and which of my employee's declarations am I actually obliged to act on?
I pay a consultant, I pay an engineering firm for technical work, and I pay my company's non-executive director a sitting fee. Do I deduct two per cent or ten per cent on each, and does the fifty thousand rupee limit apply to all three?
