Oil Ministry keen on getting income tax exemption on rupee payments to Iran

13 Feb 2012 Evaluate

The oil ministry is keen that the finance ministry should waive off the withholding tax on rupee payments made by Indian oil refiners to Iran, as the tax rate, which could translate to over 40%, is likely to make the new payment mechanism unviable. In a recent development, the oil ministry has stated that it will be writing to the Finance Ministry requesting a waiver of withholding tax on payments made to Iran.

Iran is India’s second largest oil supplier accounting for 12% of its needs. India imports about 370,000 barrels per day of oil from Iran and Indian refiners pay about $1 billion a month in euro equivalent through the Turkish bank, Turkiye Halk Bankasi. However it was feared that this payment route could be hampered as Turkey may be forced to stop this after the move by US and the European Union (EU) to ban any entity involved in Iranian oil and gas or petrochemical sectors.

Therefore it was decided that Iran would receive 45% of the payments of over $12.6-billion for its oil made by India, in rupees. Iran could use the money to buy machinery, metal products, iron, steel, minerals, clothes, fibre, sugar, tea, wood and automobiles from India.

As per the mechanism, India was to pay the Iranian supplier, National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) in an account opened in Kolkata-based UCO Bank. UCO Bank has been chosen because it has no US or European exposure and thus would not be impacted by sanctions. A part of the rupee payments would also be deposited in two Iranian private banks, Bank Parsian and Karafarin Bank. These are still not under sanctions that have been imposed on all state-run Iranian banks. However this mechanism does not seem viable anymore as it makes NIOC liable to pay income tax as the money it receives would be treated as income. This is called withholding tax and would be 40% of the income. Mostly likely NIOC would not want to pay this high tax and would want Indian oil refiners to bear it. However Indian refiners do not want to pay the tax as it will make their imports way costlier.

HPCL, which had in the fiscal year ending 31 March 2012 contracted 3.5 million tonnes of crude oil for imports from Iran on a term contract, has signed for import of only 3 million tonnes next fiscal. Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (MRPL) is the India biggest buyer of Iranian oil at 7.1 million tonnes while Essar Oil buys 5.5 million tonnes. Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has a term contract to buy 1.5 million tonnes while Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) could not commence its 1 million tonnes term imports from Iran this fiscal because it could not open an account with Turkey’s Halkbank for payment to NIOC.

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