Import duty for Data

Hi All,

Our company is SEZ unit eligible of duty free products. Recently we have received an official communication from Customs authorities that
"IMPORT OF DATA THROUGH DATA COMMUNICATIONS, TELE-COMMUNICATIONS SUCH AS EMAILS, INTERNET DOWNLOADS, FILES TRANMISSION WILL COMES UNDER IMPORT OF SERVICES AND HENCE BILL OF ENTRY HAS TO BE FILED FOR EACH TRANSMISSION FOR OBTAINING DUTY EXEMPTION."

--> We are a BPO unit providing back office operations to our client at USA. Basically our work here is to receive mails from our client & prepare QUOTATIONS / PURCHASE ORDERS as per the data in the mails & send back to our client.

--> Another kind of work is Medical Transcription, here, we receive audio files from our client through internet & we will convert it into text format and we sent back.

In the above said process, we will not get any ownership of the data, or title for the same. We are basically serving our client and in return we will be paid neverthless to the uploads / downloads. We can not VALUE the data we receive from emails or audio files as above said & subsequently we can not file BILL OF ENTRY for the same.

Now, we are in confusion with this. Can anyone advise what to do?

Best Regards
Narasimha Rao

dear sir,
at first you are to know that the Bill of Entry for goods or services and the ownership are not linked to each other. You may get the goods/ services from abroad in loan basis or ownership basis.

When you are jobworking on behalf of a company the value of the goods is immaterial because they are sending the goods/ services for further manufacturing or work scheduled by them and subsequent return to them only. In most of the cases the sender company raises one commercial Invoices for Customs purposes and on the basis of that invoice the receiver company files the BOE.

For the ITES you ask the foreign company to raise one commercial invoice based on the volume of the information/ software as the case may be and file the bill of entry.