Tax officials from 90 countries have agreed on the need to simplify transfer pricing rules and make them ‘more robust’. This was ‘particularly critical’ in the area of intangible assets, whose location may have a strong impact on tax revenues, the OECD said following the first meeting of its Global Forum on Transfer Pricing.
‘It is essential to simplify and strengthen the transfer pricing rules for the benefit of both developed and developing economies, as well as for businesses,’ said Pascal Saint-Amans, Director of the OECD’s Centre for Tax Policy Administration.
‘We need to take into account the views of all countries to ensure that the rules will be applied in a globally consistent manner – eliminating double taxation and avoiding double exemption. The Global Forum plays a critical role in achieving this objective.’
Delegates also agreed to ‘strengthen the guidelines on intangible issues and improve the efficiency of dispute resolution’.
The Global Forum will meet again in March 2013. Further information is available on the OECD website.
Global Financial Integrity (GFI), the Washington-based campaign group, welcomed the OECD initiative but noted the need for the Global Forum to ‘engage a wide variety of developing countries’.
GFI said it also encouraged the Global Forum to recommend country by country reporting, requiring that ‘all multinational corporations report sales, profits, and taxes paid in all jurisdictions in their audited annual reports and tax returns – so that it is easier for tax authorities and the OECD to see anomalies, such as millions of dollars of profit being recorded in “mailbox-only” subsidiaries located in tax havens’.
Tax officials from 90 countries have agreed on the need to simplify transfer pricing rules and make them ‘more robust’. This was ‘particularly critical’ in the area of intangible assets, whose location may have a strong impact on tax revenues, the OECD said following the first meeting of its Global Forum on Transfer Pricing.
‘It is essential to simplify and strengthen the transfer pricing rules for the benefit of both developed and developing economies, as well as for businesses,’ said Pascal Saint-Amans, Director of the OECD’s Centre for Tax Policy Administration.
‘We need to take into account the views of all countries to ensure that the rules will be applied in a globally consistent manner – eliminating double taxation and avoiding double exemption. The Global Forum plays a critical role in achieving this objective.’
Delegates also agreed to ‘strengthen the guidelines on intangible issues and improve the efficiency of dispute resolution’.
The Global Forum will meet again in March 2013. Further information is available on the OECD website.
Global Financial Integrity (GFI), the Washington-based campaign group, welcomed the OECD initiative but noted the need for the Global Forum to ‘engage a wide variety of developing countries’.
GFI said it also encouraged the Global Forum to recommend country by country reporting, requiring that ‘all multinational corporations report sales, profits, and taxes paid in all jurisdictions in their audited annual reports and tax returns – so that it is easier for tax authorities and the OECD to see anomalies, such as millions of dollars of profit being recorded in “mailbox-only” subsidiaries located in tax havens’.
