Finance (No. 2) Act, 1915

Provisions with respect to the charge of income tax on non-residents.

31.(1) Section forty-one of the Income Tax Act, 1842 (which relates to the charge of income tax in special cases), shall, so far as it relates to the taxation of non-residents, be extended—

(a) so as to make non-resident persons chargeable to income tax in the name of any branch or manager as well as in the name of any factor, agent, or receiver; and

(b) so as to make non-resident persons so chargeable, although the branch, factor, agent, receiver, or manager may not have the receipt of the profits or gains of the non-resident.

(2) A non-resident person shall be chargeable in respect of any profits or gains arising, whether directly or indirectly, through or from any branch, factorship, agency, receivership, or management, and shall be so chargeable under section forty-one of the Income Tax Act, 1842, as amended by this section, in the name of the branch, factor, agent, receiver, or manager.

(3) Where a non-resident person not being a British subject or a British, Indian, Dominion, or Colonial Firm or Company, or branch thereof, carries on business with a resident person, and it appears to the Commissioners by whom the assessment is made that, owing to the close connection between the resident and the non-resident person, and to the substantial control exercised by the non-resident over the resident, the course of business between those persons can be so arranged, and is so arranged, that the business done by the resident in pursuance of his connection with the non-resident produces to the resident either no profits or less than the ordinary profits which might be expected to arise from that business, the non-resident person shall be chargeable to income tax in the name of the resident person as if the resident person were an agent of the non-resident person.

(4) Where it appears to the Commissioners by whom the assessment is made or, on any objection or appeal, to the general or special Commissioners that the true amount of the profits or gains of any non-resident person chargeable in the name of a resident person with income tax cannot in any case be readily ascertained the Commissioners may, if they think fit, assess the non-resident person on a percentage of the turnover of the business done by the non-resident person through or with the resident person in whose name he is chargeable, and in such case section fifty-three of the Income Tax Act, 1842, shall extend so as to require returns to be given of the business so done by the non-resident through or with the resident in the same manner as returns are to be given under that section of the profits or gains to be charged.

(5) The amount of percentage shall in each case be determined, having regard to the nature of the business, by the Commissioners by whom the assessment on the percentage basis is made, subject, in the case of an assessment made by the additional Commissioners, to objection or appeal to the general or special Commissioners.

If either the resident or non-resident person is dissatisfied with the percentage determined either in the first instance or on objection or appeal by the general or special Commissioners he may, within four months of that determination, require the Commissioners to refer the question of the percentage to a referee or board of referees to be appointed for the purpose by the Treasury, and the decision of the referee or board shall be final and conclusive.

(6) Nothing in section forty-one of the Income Tax Act, 1842 (as amended by any subsequent enactment or by this section), shall render a non-resident person chargeable in the name of a broker or general commission agent, or in the name of an agent, not being an authorised person carrying on the nonresident’s regular agency or a person chargeable as if he were an agent in pursuance of this section, in respect of profits or gains arising from sales or transactions carried out through such a broker or agent.

(7) The fact that a non-resident person executes sales or carries out transactions with other non-residents in circumstances which would make him chargeable in pursuance of this section in the name of a resident person shall not of itself make him chargeable in respect of profits arising from those sales or transactions.