{"query":"What is the India–United Kingdom treaty withholding rate on royalties and fees f","matches":[{"id":"auto_wht_united_kingdom","question":"What is the India–United Kingdom treaty withholding rate on royalties and fees for technical services?","answer":"Royalty: 15% of the gross amount — Article 13 (Royalties and fees for technical services), India–United Kingdom DTAA (as amended through 20 Aug 2026). Equipment-use royalties (industrial, commercial or scientific equipment) take a separate rate: 10%. FTS: 15% — Article 13 (same article as royalties; definition in Art 13(4), exclusions in Art 13(5)). The FTS article carries a MAKE-AVAILABLE restriction in the treaty text itself — services must make technology available (enable independent application) before they are taxable as FTS. Gate: the treaty rate applies only through s.393(2) Sl. No. 17 → s.2(90)(c) with the s.159(8) TRC + Form 10F gate met; domestic comparator 20% + surcharge/cess (s.207(2)). Notes: SUPERSEDED-TREATY TRAP: Art 30(2) terminates the 16 April 1981 India-UK Convention, but Art 30(3) preserves any 1981 provision that afforded GREATER relief for UK years of assessment / Indian fiscal years beginning before the 1993 Convention entered into force. Purely historical now, but citing the 1981 instrument for any current-year position is wrong.; TRANSITIONAL-RATE TRAP: Art 13(2)(a)(i) still prints 15%/20% on the face of the treaty for 'the first five years for which this Convention has effect'. That window closed around FY 1998-99. Sources and models that quote 20% as the India-UK royalty/FTS rate are reading a spent transitional limb. The live general rate is the 15% in 13(2)(a)(ii).; WIDESPREAD SECONDARY-SOURCE ERROR ON MAKE-AVAILABLE: multiple aggregator/blog sources (and some search-engine summaries) assert that the India-UK treaty has NO make-available requirement and taxes all managerial/technical/consultancy services. This is flatly contradicted by the government-published text at Art 13(4)(c), and by a long line of Indian tribunal/AAR authority applying make-available under the UK treaty (e.g. project-specific designs not usable in future projects held outside 13(4)(c)). Treat any model output relying on 'UK has no make-available' as a hallucination. Note also that unlike India-US, India-UK has no 'managerial' category at all in 13(4) - the chapeau reads 'technical or consultancy services' only.; WIDESPREAD SECONDARY-SOURCE ERROR ON THE 2012 PROTOCOL: several sources state the 2013-in-force Protocol 'amended Article 13' or 'updated the definitions of royalties and technical services', or that it cut the rate to a flat 10%. Verified against the protocol text, it does neither - it touches Arts 3, 4, 11, 25, 28, and inserts 28A/28B/28C. Article 13 is untouched since 1993.; TWO-LIMB SPLIT, NOT A FLAT RATE: any rate table that renders India-UK royalty as a single number is lossy. The correct encoding is 15% general (13(2)(a)(ii)) / 10% equipment (13(2)(b)), and the 10% equipment lane extends to FTS that is ancillary and subsidiary to equipment enjoyment via 13(4)(b) - an FTS payment can therefore be a 10% payment.; SAME-ARTICLE STRUCTURE: FTS shares Article 13 with royalties. There is no Art 12A. Systems that look for a standalone FTS article will falsely report 'no FTS article' for the UK.; ARTICLE 13(5) NEGATIVE CARVE-OUTS: five exclusions sit outside the definition entirely (sale-linked services, international-traffic equipment rental services, teaching by educational institutions, private-use services, and employee/Art 15 professional-service payments). These are definitional exclusions, not rate reductions - the payment falls out of Art 13 altogether and is tested under Art 7 or Art 15.; ANTI-TREATY-SHOPPING LAYERS: Art 13(9) is a purpose test specific to royalties/FTS (main-purpose creation or assignment of rights), Art 28C (inserted 2013) is a general denial-of-benefits provision, and MLI Art 7 PPT applies from 2020. Three overlapping abuse tests apply to a single royalty/FTS stream..","pinpoint":"Article 13 (Royalties and fees for technical services), India–United Kingdom DTAA","confidence":"verified","as_at":"14 Aug 2026","match_score":2,"treaty":"India–United Kingdom"}],"engine":"deterministic","llm_in_path":false}