Yes, if the aggregate value of benefits to that person crosses Rs 20,000 in the financial year, s.194R requires 10% deduction on the whole value, not just the excess. It applies whether the benefit is in cash or in kind, and it has applied since 1 July 2022.
Section 194R makes the person who provides a benefit or perquisite arising from a business or profession deduct tax at 10% of its value. The Income Tax Department's own page on the section puts the trigger at an aggregate value exceeding Rs 20,000 for a recipient in a financial year, and confirms the section has applied from 1 July 2022. A commentary chart for FY 2026-27 records that the Rs 20,000 figure is still unchanged.
The deduction is not limited to money. The section expressly contemplates benefits that are wholly in kind, or partly in cash and partly in kind. Where there is not enough cash in the transaction to fund the deduction, the provider must satisfy itself that tax has been paid before releasing the benefit. In practice that means either collecting the TDS amount from the recipient first, or asking the recipient to pay advance tax and keeping the challan, or grossing up and bearing the tax yourself.
CBDT Circular 12/2022 of 16 June 2022 is the working manual. Its most aggressive holding is that the deductor need not check whether the benefit is actually taxable in the recipient's hands under any particular charging provision. Deduct first. The circular also says capital-nature benefits such as land, cars or shares are covered, and it sets the valuation rule: fair market value, except that purchase price is used if you bought the item, or retail price if you manufactured it, and GST is excluded for TDS purposes.
The circular carves out ordinary commerce. Sales discounts, cash discounts and rebates are outside the section because they are simply a lower realisation of the sale price. Free samples are not; free medicine samples to doctors are a classic covered case. Where a doctor is an employee of a hospital, the circular treats the hospital as the recipient, and the hospital may then handle it as an employee perquisite.
Circular 18/2022 added further relief. Loan waivers and one-time settlements by scheduled banks, co-operative banks, State Financial Corporations and asset reconstruction companies are outside the section. Bonus and rights issues offered to all shareholders by a company in which the public are substantially interested are outside it. So are benefits to embassies, high commissions, consulates and UN bodies. Where you already deducted under s.194C or s.194J on an invoice that bundled fees with reimbursable out-of-pocket expenses, you do not deduct again under s.194R.
Dealer conferences are the perennial argument. Genuine product-education, sales-technique or account-reconciliation content is not a perquisite. Leisure add-ons, family expenses, and overstay before or after the conference dates are. The 2022 second circular also clarified that you do not have to invite every dealer for the educational part to qualify, and that where a group activity makes individual allocation impossible, the provider can simply forgo the deduction of that expense rather than withhold.
Small providers are excluded. An individual or HUF whose business turnover was Rs 1 crore or less, or whose gross receipts from a profession were Rs 50 lakh or less, in the immediately preceding financial year need not deduct. If the recipient does not give a PAN, s.206AA pushes the rate to 20%. Surcharge and cess are not added to the 10%.
Section 194R turns ordinary marketing spend — trips, gifts, samples, sponsored conferences, free equipment — into a withholding event, and the failure to withhold can cost you the deduction for the expense as well as interest and a s.201 default. Because CBDT told deductors not to test taxability first, the safe operating assumption is that anything of value handed to a business counterparty is caught unless a circular exempts it. The Rs 20,000 threshold is per recipient per year and is easy to cross without noticing.
The Assessing Officer wants to tax what my client received on redemption of stock appreciation rights granted by the foreign parent as a perquisite. Is there Supreme Court authority on this?
The AO has taxed my advance licence and DEPB benefits in the year I exported. Is that the right year?
The lender wrote off the principal of a loan I used to buy machinery. Is that taxable?
My income is below the taxable limit and I filed Form 15G, but the finance company says it cannot act on it without a PAN. Can section 206AA be applied to me?
Old sundry creditors are still in my balance sheet. Can the AO tax them as ceased liabilities?
The Board has rejected our representation and says we must deduct under s.194R on tea samples drawn for tasting. Can the writ court stop it in the meantime?
My overseas vendor has no Indian PAN — must I withhold 20 per cent under section 206AA when the treaty caps the rate at 10 per cent?
The HUF's money was invested in the karta's own name, so the TDS certificate and the 26AS entry carry his individual PAN. The HUF offered the interest to tax and the karta claimed no credit. The department says PAN mismatch, no credit. What now?
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