Payments to book speakers for a conference weren’t subject to taxes on “event management services,” the India Supreme Court ruled, reversing a lower court decision.
The top court ruled in favor of HT Media Ltd. in a case involving fees the firm paid to speakers—including Tony Blair, astronaut Jerry Linenger, and Al Gore—through the speakers’ booking agents, for its Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.
Booking speakers through their agents isn’t “commonly understood” to mean appointing someone to manage or organize the event, the justices said in the Jan. 16 opinion.
- HT Media had engaged the Washington Speakers Bureau and Harry Walker ...