Engineers providing consultancy overseas exempt from service tax

Q&A/ SERVICE TAX

ospects of the European company and guide their team of engineers on tasks pertaining to engineering and design-related issues for the manufacture of products. The customers place orders on the European company and in turn, products are directly delivered by them to the customers. There is no local customer billing by our firm. For our consultancy services, the European company compensates us by way of consultancy fee and re-imbursement (in Euros) of actual cost incurred in rendering these services. Is service tax applicable on the said consultancy fees and re-imbursement of expenses received by us?  The query suggests that your firm is rendering services of consultancy in relation to engineering and design for custom-built products. In this context it is imperative to examine the relevant taxable category of consulting engineer