Circular No. 35/9/2018-GST
In the Service Tax regime, CBEC vide Circular No. 179/5/2014 – ST issued from F.No. 179/5/2014-ST dated 24 September 2014 had clarified that if cash calls are merely transaction in money, then they are excluded from the definition of service provided in Section 65B (44) of the Finance Act, 1994. Whether a cash call is merely a transaction in money and hence not in the nature of consideration for taxable service, would depend on the terms of the Joint Venture Agreement, which may vary from case to case. The Circular clarified that cash calls, sometimes, could be in the nature of advance payments made by members towards taxable services received from joint venture(JV); and that payments made out of cash calls pooled by a JV towards taxable services received from a member or a third party is in the nature of consideration and hence attracts Service Tax. The Circular further stated that JV being an unincorporated temporary association constituted for the limited purpose of carrying out a specified project within a time frame, a comprehensive examination of the various JV agreements (at times, there could be number of inter se agreements between members of the JV) holds the key to understanding of the taxation of transactions involving taxable services between the JV and its members or inter-se between the members of a JV. Therefore, officers in the field formations were advised to carefully examine the leviability of service tax with reference to the specific terms/clauses of each JV agreement.
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