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2015 (11) TMI 185 - ITAT AHMEDABADTransfer pricing adjustment - selection of most appropriate method - TNMM or CUP or CPM - Held that:- The prices on which the assessee has sold the same products to resident associated enterprises cannot be taken as benchmark for ascertaining the arm’s length price of its similar sale transaction with the non-resident enterprises. Once we come to the conclusion that necessary inputs for ascertaining the ALP under CUP are not available, there cannot be any occasion to apply the same. In the assessment year 2008-09, the TPO himself abandoned the CUP method and resorted to cost plus method. CPM is not a residuary method in the sense that if every other method of ascertaining the arm’s length price fails, CPM can be applied on the basis of imperfect data. If at all there is a residuary method, or what is termed as the method of last resort, it is transactional net margin method. TNMM has almost become the ‘default’ method for taxpayers in recent years.The key advantage of the TNMM is that there is often available data in the public domain about the net profits that comparable independent businesses earn from their trading activities in comparable markets with other third parties. As such, the TNMM often proves easier to apply than, say, the Cost Plus or RPM methods, and TNMM is less sensitive to minor differences in the products being sold. It is also important that the data for application of CPM, as collected by the TPO, was not in public domain and this has been done by collecting information under section 133(6). Such a data could not have been available to the assessee. All shortcomings being equal in the application of the methods of determining the ALP, as at best is the case of the authorities below, the method to be preferred is the method for which necessary inputs are available in the public domain Authorities below indeed erred in not applying the TNMM for ascertaining the arm’s length price of assessee’s transactions with the associated enterprises. We direct the AO/TPO to compute the ALP on the basis of the transactional net margin method. With these directions, we remit the matter to the file to the assessment stage for fresh determination of arm’s length price. - Decided in favour of assessee for statistical purposes.
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