Insights · 3 guides

Cross-border tax guides

These guides are for the tax side of a payment that leaves India for a service, a royalty or a fee. They are not the bank’s IDPMS pages. Form 145 and Form 146, which replaced Form 15CA and Form 15CB, are the papers the income-tax rules ask for, and your CA files them. One guide sets out which form applies and what the platform’s worksheet prepares. Another works Part C and Part D through purpose codes you will actually use, so you can see the difference on a number. A third stays with the treaty papers: the tax residency certificate, the declaration and the no-permanent-establishment wording a lower rate depends on. Read the forms guide first. Each guide names its author and its sources.

The cross-border tax guides

Title and a line on what that guide covers. The short answer stays on the guide.

Form 145 and Form 146: which part applies to your foreign paymentBy CA Prachi Goel · 8 minBefore your bank sends money abroad for anything other than the purchase of goods, it will usually ask for an acknowledgement from the income-tax portal. That acknowledgement is Form 145, and for larger taxable payments it rests on a chartered accountant's certificate in Form 146.Paying a foreign vendor at the treaty rate: the papers that matterBy CA Prachi Goel · 6 minThe treaty rate is often a fraction of the rate under the Act, and sometimes nil. Whether you can apply it depends less on the treaty than on what the payee has given you.Form 145 Part C or Part D? Worked examples by purpose codeBy CA Prachi Goel · 8 minThe rules for choosing a part of Form 145 fit in four lines. Applying them to a real invoice is harder, because the answer turns on what the payment is for and who receives it. These examples work through the purpose codes that come up most.

Where cross-border tax is handled

Services receipts & paymentsForm 145 / 146 worksheets, the monthly EDF and FIRA.Purpose code finderThe RBI code for a payment, and the form, tax and GST that follow.

Other topics: Exports · Imports · Banking · FEMA reporting · The whole library · Glossary