[Opinion] Dissecting New TP Reporting Form 48 under Rule 85 of the Income Tax Rules 2026

Abhishek Bhavsar – [2026] 185 taxmann.com 36 (Article)

I. Background and Regulatory Intent

The enactment of the Income-tax Act, 2025 (Act No. 30 of 2025), coupled with the notified Income-tax Rules, 2026, has ushered in a comprehensive overhaul of India’s transfer pricing (TP) compliance architecture. Among the most significant procedural changes is the introduction of Form No. 48 under Rule 85, which replaces the erstwhile Form No. 3CEB prescribed under the previous Income-tax Act, 1961, as the primary accountant’s report for international transactions and specified domestic transactions (SDTs).

The transition from Form No. 3CEB to Form No. 48 is far more than a cosmetic renumbering exercise. It reflects a deliberate policy recalibration by the Indian Tax Authority – Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT or ITA) to align Indian TP reporting with contemporary global standards, most notably the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Action Plans—in particular, Action 8–10 (aligning transfer pricing outcomes with value creation) and Action 13 (transfer pricing documentation and country-by-country reporting).

In essence, the form has been architecturally redesigned to capture granular transactional and economic data, enable risk-based scrutiny by the Income Tax Department, and reduce information asymmetry between taxpayers and the Revenue.

For multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating in India and Indian entities engaged in cross-border transactions with associated enterprises (AEs), Form 48 represents a significant expansion of disclosure obligations.

This article provides a detailed structural analysis of the form, juxtaposes it against its predecessor, examines the arm’s length price (ALP) computation framework, and distils the practical and strategic implications for compliance teams and transfer pricing professionals.

II. Structural Analysis of Form 48 – Part-by-Part Examination

Part A – Particulars of the Assessee

Part A serves as the identification gateway of the form, collecting the assessee’s full name, complete address (including pin code, state, and country), and Permanent Account Number (PAN). The same seems to be auto-populated (while not stated specifically), at the time when online version releases.

Part B – Aggregate Transaction Amounts (Auto-Populated)

Part B captures aggregate transaction amounts as per the books of account, bifurcated across three categories – International Transactions, Deemed International Transactions, and Specified Domestic Transactions—each further split between ‘Received’ and ‘Paid.’

It is also pertinent to note that critical definitional clarification appears under Note 3 i.e., ‘amount paid’ includes both amounts actually paid and amounts payable, while ‘amount received’ includes both amounts actually received and amounts receivable. This accrual-basis aggregation principle ensures that year-end outstanding balances—often a source of TP disputes in service transactions—are captured within the reporting perimeter, which were not specified under the earlier provisions/form filing instructions.

Part C – International Transactions Including Deemed International Transactions

Part C constitutes the substantive core of the form and is structured around three interconnected sub-disclosures – the list of AEs with whom the taxpayer has undertaken international transactions (Row 5), the list of persons with whom the taxpayer has undertaken deemed international transactions (Row 6), and the granular transaction-level details (Row 7).

Row 5 & Row 6 – List of AEs and Persons

Row 5 & Row 6 requires identification of each AE through a unique ‘AE ID’ or ‘Person-ID’ along with name, address, country of residence, PAN/TIN or other unique identifier, and—most significantly—the nature of relationship (with AEs) as defined under Section 162(1) of the Income-tax Act, 2025.

It is pertinent to note that Row 6 addresses deemed international transactions—a concept that has evolved through litigation and statutory amendments—requiring identification of third-party persons whose transactions with the assessee may, on account of a prior arrangement with an AE, be treated as international transactions.

“Inessence, the structural separation for deemed international transaction clarifies the reporting perimeter for complex multi-party arrangements. As this form requires accountant certification, deemed international transactions demand heightened TP documentation due to their complex, tripartite structure and dispersed evidentiary trail.”

Row 7 – Transaction Reporting at Granular Level

Row 7 is the most operationally demanding section of Part C. For each Transaction ID, the form requires – the Transaction Type (from an exhaustive 18-category list in Note 6), the AE/Person ID, additional information specific to the transaction type (Note 7), the transaction amount as per books of account (bifurcated into received and paid), and—critically—the arm’s length price as computed in Part E. The integration of ALP directly into the transaction-level disclosure creates a real-time reconciliation between the commercial value of the transaction and the TP-adjusted value, a structural departure from Form 3CEB where ALP computation was typically a separate working exercise.

It is pertinent to note that Note no. 6 of the form enumerates 18 primary transaction categories, each with multiple sub-types—particularly for intangible property transactions (Category 9), which are now classified across 12 sub-heads covering marketing-related, technology-related, artistic, data-processing, engineering, customer-related, contract-related, human capital-related, location-related, goodwill-related, and other intangibles. This taxonomy directly mirrors the OECD’s intangibles framework under BEPS Action 8 and the 2017 revisions to Chapter VI of the OECD TP Guidelines. In contrast, Form 3CEB’s intangible transaction disclosure was considerably less structured.

Row 8 – APA

Row 8 introduces a dedicated advance pricing agreement (APA) disclosure module, requiring details of covered transactions, total transaction amounts, and the portion covered under the APA. This integration acknowledges the growing prevalence of APAs in India’s TP landscape and ensures that APA-compliant transactions are ring-fenced from routine TP scrutiny—a meaningful safeguard for taxpayers who have invested in the APA process.

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