Taxation and other Regulatory Norms on E-Scholarly Communication

The previous issue presented some views on E-Resources Consortia and in the follow-up the present topic incidentally has come-up to enlighten our users on the subject of taxing scholarly communication as discussed in a recent Sym posium on "E-Content: Copyright, Licensing, Taxation and Regulatory Norms" held on 26 ^th July 2013 at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore. In. re cent times the issue of Taxation; TDS and Service Tax, especially on e-content subscribed through consortia and/or otherwise has been widely contemplated from various corners, comprising Libraries, Publishers and Subscription agents. Some of these procedural ac ts were practiced by Libraries, for instance, the licensing was practiced in other ways in traditional library acquisitions of books and periodicals by means of a set of terms and conditions of supply and were mutually agreed to by both the parties. But the taxation part is quite appalling in the present context. The subject of application of TDS and Service Tax was severally discussed by the participants in the seminar.