FinMin extends time for comments on PoEM guidelines till Jan 9

The Finance Ministry today extended the deadline by a week till January 7 for receiving public comments on rules for determining the place of effective management of a company.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), last week, came out with draft guiding principles for determination of Place of Effective Management (PoEM) and had invited stakeholder comments on the same by January 2.
"Representations requesting for extension of the last day for submitting comments and suggestions, have been received and considered... The comments and suggestion on the above draft guidance may now be sent by January 9, 2016," the ministry said in a statement.

The draft PoEM guidelines have suggested two-stage process for determining the place of effective management of a company, with a view to assess its tax liability.
According to the draft guidelines, the first stage would be identification of the persons who make the key management and commercial decision for the company and secondly the determination of the place where these decisions are made.
The modification of the existing norms, it said, is necessary as many companies skip tax liability by misusing the guidelines.

Under the existing norms, many companies "artificially escape" the residential status under these provisions by shifting insignificant or isolated events related with control and management outside India.

The draft norms say PoEM would mean a place where key management and commercial decisions that are necessary for the conduct of a business or an entity as a whole are in substance made.
According to the guidelines, a company will be deemed to
be engaged in active business outside India if the passive income (royalty, capital gains, dividend, interest, rental income) is not more than 50 per cent of its total income, less than 50 per cent of its total assets are situated in India, less than 50 per cent of the employees are situated in India and the pay roll expenses on such employees is less than 50 per cent of the total.

The draft guidelines also state that "the place of effective management in case of a company engaged in active business outside India shall be presumed to be outside India if the majority meetings of the board of directors of the company are held outside India."
Guidelines provide factors such as location where a company's board regularly meets and makes decisions, head office location, etc.