MNCs can submit country-by-country report by March 31

The income tax Department today gave MNCs time till March 31, 2018 to comply with country-by- country reporting norms.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has notified rules for maintaining and furnishing of transfer pricing documentation in the Master File and country-by-country report (CbCR).
Section 286 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 was inserted vide Finance Act, 2016, providing for furnishing of a country-by- country report in respect of an international group by its constituent or parent entity.
Section 92D of the Act was also amended to provide for keeping and maintaining of Master File by every constituent entity of an international group, which was to be furnished as per rules prescribed in this regard.

"Since it is the first reporting year for furnishing of the Country-by-Country report, the due date for filing the Country-by-Country report for reportable accounting year 2016 -17 has already been extended to March 31, 2018... Similarly, the date of compliance for furnishing the Master File for FY 2016-17 has been extended to March 31, 2018 as a one-time relief measure," CBDT said in a statement.
Country-by-Country reporting norms are in line with India's commitment to implement OECD's base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) project.

BEPS refers to tax avoidance strategies that exploit gaps and mismatches in tax rules to artificially shift profits to low or no-tax locations.

The reporting will require MNCs to provide aggregate information annually, in each jurisdiction where they do business, relating to the global allocation of income and taxes paid, together with other indicators of the location of economic activity within the group.
It will also cover information about which entities do business in a particular jurisdiction and the business activities each entity engages in.
The threshold for the country-by-country report is total consolidated group revenue of Rs 5,500 crore or more.
The same for the master file is consolidated Group revenue exceeding Rs 500 crore.