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Non-compete fee now taxable for professionals

Govt Expands The Net By Plugging LoopholeNon-Compliance To Attract Stiff Penalties Professionals obtaining any sum of money under a non-compete agreement will now be subject to tax with the government having plugged a loophole in the Budget. Once non-compete agreements were largely restricted to the manufacturing arena.For instance, an outgoing employee would have to sign on the dotted line that he would not share knowhow or a patent that he had helped develop during his employment. Or if he was an inventor, he could be debarred under the non-compete agreement from starting a similar line of business for a certain period. The money received under such non-compete agreements was duly taxed. “There was no specific provisions to cover professionals who could argue that the sum of money received by hem under a non-compete agreement was not taxable,“ says Gautam Nayak, tax part ner, CNK & Associates. Now a wide gamut of pro essionals -such as those in he legal, medical, enginee ring or

Lower tax on patent income to boost R&D

The Budget has introduced a special `royalty tax' which lowers the effective rate of tax on income earned from patents. The objective is to encourage indigenous research and development, and to make India an innovation hub. The benefit will be available across knowledge-based sectors of the economy , including pharmaceuticals. The FM proposed a special patent regime with a 10% rate of tax on income from worldwide commercialization of patents which are developed and registered in India. Usually, the domestic company which has commercialized the patent would be paying tax from income at the standard rate of 30% after deducting expense. With this proposal, the tax liability on income from commercialization of patents goes down, and thus would be beneficial for knowledge-based firms, experts say , adding that it would reduce the outflow of intellectual property from India. The aim of the `concessional taxation regime' extended across sectors, for income derived from patents, is to

Cos face country-wise rules for transfer pricing

Govt Expands The Net By Plugging Loophole Non-Compliance To Attract Stiff Penalties Professionals obtaining any sum of money under a non-compete agreement will now be subject to tax with the government having plugged a loophole in the Budget. Once non-compete agreements were largely restricted to the manufacturing arena.For instance, an outgoing employee would have to sign on the dotted line that he would not share knowhow or a patent that he had helped develop during his employment. Or if he was an inventor, he could be debarred under the non-compete agreement from starting a similar line of business for a certain period. The money received under such non-compete agreements was duly taxed. “There was no specific provisions to cover professionals who could argue that the sum of money received by hem under a non-compete agreement was not taxable,“ says Gautam Nayak, tax part ner, CNK & Associates. Now a wide gamut of pro essionals -such as those in he legal, medical, enginee ring