Indian High Court Overturns Income Tax Appellate Tribunal Decision that Domain Name Registration Services Fees Constitute Taxable Trademark Royalties

On 11 December 2023, the Delhi High Court issued a judgment concerning whether fees for website domain name registration services should be considered trademark royalty payments subject to withholding tax. The case involved GoDaddy.com LLC, a provider of web hosting and domain registration services. In the year concerned, GoDaddy reported its income from web hosting as royalty income subject to tax, but reported its income from domain registration as non-taxable income because the service was…