The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has set up five more transfer pricing commissionerates with the objective of augmenting capacity to handle transfer pricing issues that emanate out of increased volume of international transactions from the country.
Official sources said that these commissionerates have been set up at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune and Ahmedabad. These five are in addition to existing transfer pricing commissionerates at Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad.
The Finance Ministry has also increased staffing for transfer pricing assessments by creating posts of joint commissioners (transfer pricing) in various regions of the country.
“Some of the existing transfer pricing officers are faced with work load in excess of international norms. The main objective behind setting up five more commissionerates is to take care of the increase in international transaction volumes and also to lessen the work load of some of the existing officers”, official sources said.
As the Indian economy gets more integrated with the global economy, the volume of international transactions has seen a quantum jump in the recent years. The transfer pricing adjustments made by the income-tax department has shown a rise in value terms during the last three financial years.
“The CBDT move (to set up more transfer pricing commissionerates) will reduce work pressure on some of the transfer pricing officers and would also result in more quality assessments. We should also continue with more training, development and knowledge sharing on Transfer Pricing among officers”, Mr Samir Gandhi, Tax Partner, Deloitte Haskins & Sells said.
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