Friday November 30, 2018 our Global Taxand Transfer Pricing Conference took place in Amsterdam. The room was filled with around 150 TP specialists from around the world. Please find our takeaways from OECD, Dutch Tax Authorities (CBC reporting team) and Taxand panels on TP audits, IP and Financial Transactions. A more detailed summary of the Conference will follow.
Takeaway presentation Marlen Saenz (OECD):
The OECD is working hard to finalize the Guidance on Financial transactions, which is the key remaining item from BEPS project follow-up work. The scope of work for future updates of the TP Guidelines (Chapter IV and VII) has been also agreed, but it remains to be seen, what will be the immediate work priorities due to ongoing discussions on taxation of digital economy. Other important projects of the Transfer Pricing unit include, the project on Transfer Pricing with Brazil and Tax Certainty project. The work on Review of CBCR standard has started in November 2018 with a view to complete the project by 2020.
Takeaway presentation Marcel Hanibals and Willem Jan van Veen (Dutch Tax Authorities):
The first round of exchange of CBC reports went well and the DTA is now starting their assessments. This is the first time that uniform information is exchanged between tax authorities. In this respect they have a special built IT tool to analyze the data in order to perform a risk assessment. The DTA continues to be approachable and open to MNE for consultations.
Takeaway panel Tax Audits (Einari Karhu, Renata Blahova, Michael Puls):
Irrespective of common TP principles, taxpayers should anticipate the differences in TP practices in different countries.
Takeaway panel Financial transactions (Stefano Bognandi, Deyan Mollov, Anne Carole Chapuis, Andreas Medler):
The real challenge for MNEs is to find a balance between (i) accuracy of economic analyses that are technically complex and increasingly sophisticated and (ii) the need of simple and well documented pricing policies to guarantee a transparent audit process.
Takeaway panel DEMPE (Margaret Critzer, Clemens Nowotny, Hendrik Blankenstein, Christina Storm):
“Process”/”functional” ownership of IP requires personnel with respective capabilities/experiences & actual performance of risk management. The RACI matrix can be a useful tool to weight the value contributions. In this way separate important business processes or projects of an MNE are distinguished and the role of participants is weighted based on following elements: Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed.