Google India gets Income-Tax Dept notice for not revealing correct revenues — economictimes.indiatimes.com — Readability
Around the same time Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal was planning to pull up
Google, the Income-Tax Department was giving the final touches to a tax demand on the Indian arm of the global search engine company.
Google India Pvt Ltd, according to the tax office, has not offered its entire income for taxation and the profit and loss account filed by the company "does not give complete picture of the businesses".
The department has questioned Google India's practice of paying tax on its 'net' income from advertisements, after crediting a sizeable amount as distribution fees to Google Ireland. Google India runs the 'Adwords' programme whereby advertisements that appear on its website are sold in India to Indian
business establishments.
Tax officers have built their argument on the basis of the contract between Google India and Google Ireland. As per this, Google India is conducting the business and obtaining revenue from Adwords programme "on its own account". "This, according to the I-T department's interpretation, makes Google India a separate entity that should declare its full income for tax purpose," said a person who is aware of a tax assessment order that was served on Google India this week.
For the assessment year 2008-09, the order says Google India has admitted revenue of only Rs 7.49 crore instead of showing the "correct revenue of Rs 167.32 crore".
Besides, no tax was deducted at source against the amount credited to Google Ireland. Based on the tax on the 'gross income' and TDS, the department has made a claim of Rs 74 crore for the year.
I guess next target would be folks like us who makes money from AdSense.