CBDT signs three more APAs in Dec

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has entered into three more Advance Pricing Agreements (APAs) in December 2017.

While two of the agreements are unilateral, one is bilateral with the United Kingdom, a notification from the Ministry of Finance read.

With the signing of these agreements, the total number of APAs entered into by the CBDT has gone up to 189. This includes 173 unilateral APAs and 16 bilateral APAs.

These three APAs pertain to electronics, coal and insurance sectors of the economy.

The international transactions covered in these agreements include provisions of software development services, provisions of IT enabled services, trading, and others.

The APA provisions were introduced in the Income-tax Act in 2012 and the "Rollback" provisions were introduced in 2014.

The APA scheme endeavours to provide certainty to taxpayers in the domain of transfer pricing by specifying the methods of pricing and setting the prices of international transactions in advance.

The progress of the APA scheme strengthens the government's resolve of fostering a non-adversarial tax regime.

The Indian APA programme has been appreciated nationally and internationally for being able to address complex transfer pricing issues in a fair and transparent manner.

It has contributed significantly towards improving the ease of doing business in India.