Rule 10F — the law in short
What the courts have decided on section Rule 10F, in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.
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s.92CC(4) — the five-year APA term and the year outside it
CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both ways
My advance pricing agreement covers five years. What about the year just outside it - can the agreed margin be held against me, or held to my benefit, for that year?
Section 92CC(4) caps the agreement at such period not exceeding five consecutive previous years as may be specified in it, and s.92CC(3) gives the agreement its force only "in respect of which the advance pricing agreement has been entered into". Sub-section (9A) extends that backwards, but only so far: an agreement may, subject to prescribed conditions, determine the arm's length price or the attributable income for any period not exceeding four previous years preceding the first of the years covered by sub-section (4), and rule 10F(ha) calls those the rollback years. A year outside the five plus four is outside the agreement, and the Pune Bench has held in Tetra Pak India that the window works against the department too: the TPO may not benchmark an uncovered year against the margin agreed in the APA.
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Form 3CED — a defective or late APA application
CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both ways
Do I have to go through a pre-filing consultation before I file Form 3CED, and what happens if the application is defective or goes in late?
Since 14 March 2015 pre-filing consultation is optional: rule 10-I(1) now lets any person referred to in rule 10G apply in Form No. 3CED, where before that date it was confined to a person who had been through a pre-filing consultation under rule 10H. A defect in the application is not fatal by itself — rule 10K requires a deficiency letter within one month of receipt, gives the applicant fifteen days to cure, extendable to a total of thirty, and only then allows an order that the application shall not be proceeded with, which cannot be passed without a hearing and which carries a refund of the fee. Timing is a different matter: rule 10-I(3) fixes when the application must be made and no provision for extending it appears in these rules.
Listed strongest first: Supreme Court, then High Court, then Tribunal, then CBDT. Nothing here has yet been read in full by a chartered accountant — open an entry to see where it came from.
