Pre-2015 Flight Ticket Reimbursements Not Subject to Service Tax: CESTAT Allows Refund for CA Firm

This Taxscan piece reports a CESTAT order granting refund claims to a chartered-accountancy firm by holding that employee flight-ticket reimbursements made prior to the service-tax regime’s 2015 amendments did not attract service tax. The tribunal examined the nature of payments and policy contours of taxability, concluding that reimbursements in the factual matrix before 2015 were not taxable services and therefore eligible for refund where duty was collected earlier. The decision engages interpretative questions about the taxable event, consideration and the temporal ambit of levy provisions.