08 May 2010
There is a hospital(registered as partnership firm) whose returns have not been filed for the last 5 A.Y.The hospital used to issue bills to the patients including the amount paid to the visiting doctors without deducting TDS on amount payable to the said visiting doctors.Now the contention of the IT department is that the hospital is liable to deposit all the TDS amount which should have been deducted from the amount paid to the doctors. Whereas the contention of hospital is that the amount included in the bill to be paid to doctors are collected by the hospital on behalf of the doctors in good faith(thereby treating it just as a remittance), hence should not be liable for deducting TDS. Please suggest proper treatment.
08 May 2010
In the given scenario, the following possibilities I think may exist
1. If the doctors are on the payroll of the hospital, then the amount paid to doctors is a salary and accordingly TDS is to be deducted on salary by the hospital. But i think this is the not the case.
2. The Hospital collects fees from the patients, and pays Professional Fees to the doctors on the basis of no. of patients or any other criteria, in which case the Hospital is liable to deduct TDS on Professional Fees. This is the most likely case in the mentioned scenario..i suppose.
3. For the plea of reimbursement, i don't think this is the case since, the hospital definitely is not paying the whole fees collected from the patients . The fees to be paid to the doctors is based on some criteria. However, if full fees is paid to the doctors, then the doctor is liable to Calculate the tax and deposit advance tax on the basis of his PGBP Income.
08 May 2010
This Query posted 2nd time now, As well said Mr.Rahul gupta. based on the agreement having hospital with doctors. but since your telling the fees collected and paid to doctors (either reimbursement or professional fees ) and how the doctors payment accounted under which head, these are all the things need to be clarified
At present given details the liability of deducting TDS under hospital only
More elaborate facts needed to form an opinion. However, for OPD consultation fee(commonly known as prescription fee) paid to doctors on actual basis may be out of TDS net in view of judgment of Delhi Banch of ITAT in Asst. CIT vs. Indraprastha Medical Corpn. Ltd. [2009] 33 SOT 261.
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