Do we need Form 3CEB for one small intercompany invoice?
Yes. India requires an accountant's report on international related-party transactions regardless of amount, which makes it the one country in most groups' footprint where a single small intercompany charge creates a certified filing. Groups discover this when a management fee, a software recharge or a one-off reimbursement turns up in the Indian entity's ledger and no report covers it. Size provides no exemption and neither does the charge being at cost. The practical point is that the entity's related-party ledger has to be reviewed for the whole year, not only the transactions the group considers significant.
What does Form 3CEB actually certify?
It certifies the international related-party transactions, the method applied to them and the pricing that resulted, and it is accompanied by the prescribed documentation. So it is not a covering page for a study prepared elsewhere. It is a statement about specific transactions, which means someone has to identify each of them, decide what method applies, and be satisfied that the pricing follows. Where the group's own study is silent about a transaction the Indian ledger contains, that gap becomes visible at the point of certification rather than at an audit years later.
Can we use the group's benchmarking study for India?
Sometimes as a starting point, rarely as the filing. Indian benchmarking practice and the department's preferences about comparables differ from those used elsewhere in the group, so a set assembled for another jurisdiction can be technically sound and still be the wrong set here. The usual outcome is that the method survives and the comparables are rebuilt. Where the group's range and the Indian range differ, that difference is worth documenting deliberately, because the two files will be read together by anyone who ever compares them.
Which entity has to file the report in India?
The report attaches to the entity whose international related-party transactions it certifies, so it follows the Indian company rather than the group. That becomes a practical distinction when the pricing decisions are taken at the parent while the filing obligation sits with a subsidiary that did not take them. The people signing are on the Indian side, so they need the analysis, the method reasoning and the prescribed documentation in their own hands before the report goes in, rather than a summary of a file held in another country.
We recharge costs with no mark-up, is that reportable?
A recharge is a related-party transaction, and the report covers those regardless of amount, so the absence of a mark-up does not put it outside the filing. It does affect what the documentation has to explain. Charging at cost is itself a pricing decision, and the prescribed documentation has to set out the method that supports it for the transaction in question. In practice this is where a cost base gets examined for the first time: what is in it, who is being charged, and whether the allocation matches the benefit each entity receives.
Is a transfer pricing study on its own enough for India?
No, because there are two deliverables and they are not the same thing. The prescribed documentation is the underlying record of the transactions, the method and the pricing. The accountant's report is a certification about those transactions. A group that has commissioned a study holds part of the first and none of the second. Sequencing matters here: the report is signed against documentation that already exists, so leaving the study until the filing window is open compresses the part of the work that depends on gathering facts from people.
What is an intercompany agreement, and do we need one?
It is the contract between the related parties — who does what, who bears which risk, what is charged and on what basis. It matters because when there is no agreement, an auditor prices the transaction from the conduct they can observe rather than from the arrangement you intended, and conduct rarely tells the whole story. Signed agreements that match the invoices and the actual functions are the cheapest transfer pricing protection there is. See our transfer pricing work.
Do foreign shares, ESOPs and RSUs count as foreign assets in an Indian return?
Yes. Equity held directly, shares acquired under an employee plan once they have vested to you, units in foreign funds, the custodial account they sit in and the foreign bank account that funds it are all disclosable by a resident — separately, with acquisition cost, peak value and income for the year. This is where returning employees of multinational groups most often have a gap, because the plan administrator reports to the employer, not to you. See Schedule FA reporting.
