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CREDIT CARDS

Rachit (Analyst) (913 Points)

29 March 2012

Re: Credit card Transactions involving incidence of TDS.

Facts:-

A Retail merchant swipes a credit card for receiving payment from customer. The bill details and amount are then forwarded to the acquiring bank, which makes payment of the bill amount to the retail merchant after withholding its discount amount for providing this service to the retail merchant.

Query:-

Whether the discount so withheld by the acquiring banker be treated as being in the nature of commission, liable for deduction of tax u/s. 194H?

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4 Replies

Giridhar S Karandikar (Team Lead) (7548 Points)
Replied 29 March 2012

I don't think that the TDS would be required to be made on account of such discount. As in some cases, the merchants collect the percentage of amount from their customers over & above the bill amount as the credit card co making the payment deducts some percentage of amount from the merchants while making the payment to the merchant.

so the merchants are at no loss as they recover the amounts from their customers which in turn is being paid to the credit card co.

Also an expenditure is treated as commission, when any service is being rendered to anyone. In the credit card transactions, the cr card co is not rendering any service to the merchant, it is just paying the amount requried to be paid to the merchant & in turn deducts some percent as discount. The cr card co is rendering service to teh credit card holder. so I think that the question of commission does not arise 7 also TDS would not be requried to be made.

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Rachit (Analyst) (913 Points)
Replied 30 March 2012

Actually we are in receipt of show cause notice in this respect.

The Department's contention is that the acquiring bank renders services for recovery of the bill amount to the retail merchant and hence acts as an agent of the retail merchant. Therefore, the discount is in the nature of commission which is withheld by the acquiring bank while making payment to the retail merchant. Hence the same should be subjected to TDS @ 10% u/s. 194H