Samsung Gives Challenge to UsD 520 Million Tax Demand in India, Points to Reliance Business Trend

Samsung, one of the large consumer electronics and smartphone companies, has challenged a tax demand of about $ 52 million (about Rs 4,380 crore) in India in a tribunal. This tax demand is reportedly associated with imports with wrong classifications of networking gear. A report by Reuters quoted the documents related to the case as saying that Samsung has argued that the authorities were aware of this business method as Reliance has been importing this component for years in a similar way. Samsung is the second major foreign company to challenge tax demand in the country in the last few months. Earlier, Germany’s Volkswagen challenged a tax demand of about $ 1.4 billion (about Rs 11,796 crore) for import with the wrong classification of its component.

Earlier this year, Tax Authorities asked Samsung to pay $ 52 million for import with wrong classification of a major equipment of mobile tower. Tax authorities had said that the company had saved a tariff of 10–20 percent. Samsung has challenged this tax demand at the Customs Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal in Mumbai. The company has said that tax authorities were fully aware of this trading method as Reliance imported the equipment similar to any tariff for three years.

Samsung unit in the country has said that it was found in a tax -related investigation that Reliance was warned about it in 2017 but Reliance did not inform him about it. Samsung has said this in the filing submitted on 17 April. This document has not been made public but Reuters have seen it. Samsung and Tax Authority did not answer the questions sent by Reuters in this regard. Apart from this tax demand, the authorities have also fined the company’s seven workers about 8.1 million dollars (about Rs 682 crore). It is not known whether Samsung workers have challenged this fine separately.

(This news has not been edited by the NDTV team. It has been published directly from the syndicate feed.)