My wife is a sitar player and gives concerts. She went to the US in May 2003 to meet our daughter and live with her for 15 months. There a music school has offered her a one-year contract to teach music. The school will pay her a specified sum. Will this sum be assessed as a professional receipt or salary?
If the agreement is drafted in a manner that it distinguishes the person engaged vis-a-vis the other employees then it is possible to contend that the service is professional in nature than employment. Prima facie, it appears that the receipt will be of a professional nature.
In Commissioner of Income-Tax vs Mrs Durga Khote (1952) 21 ITR 22 (Bombay) and in Commissioner of Income-Tax vs Jnan Prakash Ghosh (1994) 205 ITR 454 (Calcutta) cases it was held that a professional when engaged for rendering services abroad that too for only one-year would mean that the engagement was more of professional in nature and couldn
