转让定价:含义 | 转让定价的风险与收益

分类:
转让定价
发布日期:
March 6, 2020

目录

联系我们
感谢您!我们已收到您的提交信息!
糟糕!提交表单时出错了。

立足本土,
服务全球

我们以专业和清晰的视角,为您提供跨境业务支持。
预约咨询

With globalization in effect, there is a significant rise in the number of multinational companies. It's a fact that around 60% of world trade proceeds within multinational enterprises. Hence, transfer pricing has become an interest not only for tax administrators but also for economists, NGOs, business persons, and politicians who are waking up to the call.  Here in this article, we are going to learn about all the risk factors and benefits of Transfer Pricing.

It's much of people's interest knowing who is paying tax and who is not when business transactions between different arms of multinationals take place. 

It's an evident case that through transfer pricing companies can deprive tax authorities in different jurisdictions of their fair share of taxes. No matter if we consider a wealthy, emerging or poor country nobody wants suffering from its tax base because of transfer pricing.

1. What is Transfer Pricing?

“Transfer price” means the price charged for transfer for goods or services. However, as far as tax is concerned, in common parlance, “Transfer pricing: is considered as price charges for transfer of goods or service between associate entities. 

For example: Let's assume a UK computer manufacturer group buys the computer microchips from its own subsidiary in India. Now, the amount the parent UK company pays to its subsidiary in India for the microchips is the amount of profit the subsidiary unit can represent and need to pay tax for that. 

The price charged by a subsidiary company from its holding company can be arbitrary and dictated and such arrangement may result in avoidance or reduction of tax liability. Accordingly, provisions of “Transfer pricing” given under the Income Tax Act can be used to actual uncontrolled prices. 

Transfer Pricing is nothing but the value attached to goods or services transferred in between related parties. More precisely speaking, it is the price paid for products and services transferred from a unit to other units of an organization or transfer of goods or services between associate/related enterprises.

2. Specific Transaction Which Comes Under Transfer Pricing

  • Sale of accomplished goods;
  • Buying fixed assets;
  • The sale or buy machinery etc.
  • Purchase of raw ingredients;
  • Buy or sale of Intangibles.
  • Return of expenses paid/received;
  • Support services;
  • Corporate Guarantee fees;
  • Software Development service;
  • IT services;
  • Technical Service fees;
  • Management fees;
  • Royalty fee;
  • Loan received or paid
  • Any other transaction having an impact on the profit, income, losses or assets of enterprises.

3. Purpose

While transfer pricing has several objectives here, we are going to discuss the two most prominent among them.

  • Transfer pricing allows business organizations to gain profit separately for all the divisions they have. Not only that but also it allows them to evaluate the performance of each plant individually.
  • Besides the reported profit of each center, transfer pricing also helps business entities to allocate the company's resources considering the total cost incurred by one center as the resource they have utilized.

Legal entities under a single corporation can have several branches where the companies which are wholly or the major share can be owned by the parent corporation. There are many jurisdictions who consider business entities within a common control if they share family members on the list of their board of directors. 

Transfer pricing plays an instrumental role to allocate profit to a multinational corporation when it comes to clear tax liabilities in different countries where they do business. It basically allows setting the price among divisions inside an enterprise.

Transfer pricing offers tax advantages to multinational companies but often or not regulatory authorities tend to use it for tax avoidance. 

Furthermore, Through transfer pricing companies can ensure profits for goods and services in different countries which have a lower tax rate. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) regulates international tax laws. 

In the case of international goods and service exchanges where the transfer of service and goods takes place from one country to another through an interrelated company, the transaction can allow the company to avoid tariffs on the exchange.

Therefore, principles of transfer pricing are used to determine “Arm’s length price” for the transaction that took place between associate entities so that any avoidance or reduction of tax liability can be mitigated. Under transfer pricing, various principles are there to determine “Arm’s Length price” considering transaction took place between independent parties.

4. 转让定价的风险与收益

现在,您已经了解了什么是转让定价及其运作方式。接下来,我们来探讨一下转让定价的相关风险与收益。

4.1 转让定价的收益

  • 转让定价使企业能够降低关税成本。它允许商业实体以最低的转让价格向高关税国家运送货物,从而降低了相关交易的关税基数。
  • 通过转让定价方法,企业可以对销往低税率国家的货物进行高定价,从而减少在税负较高国家的所得税。通过这种方式,商业实体能够成功获得更高的利润率。

因此,“转让定价”条款有助于避免此类情况的发生。

4.2 转让定价的相关风险

尽管转让定价能为企业带来一定的收益,但同时也伴随着特定的风险因素。请参阅下文以深入了解:

  • 组织部门经理之间对定价政策的分歧是主要问题之一。
  • 此外,转让定价还涉及各种额外成本。设计一套符合转让定价要求的会计系统需要耗费大量的时间和人力,这就是其额外成本的来源。
  • 在确定服务等无形资产的定价政策时,决定合适的金额是一项艰巨的任务。
  • 由于买卖双方承担的职能不同,这会引发特定类型的风险。例如,在某些情况下,产品卖方可能会也可能不会为特定产品提供保修,而这种差异会影响买方为获得该产品所需支付的价格。以下是一些实际影响价格的风险:
    • 收款风险
    • 创业风险与市场风险
    • 货币与金融风险
    • 信用风险
    • 产品过时风险
  • 对于大型跨国公司而言,转让定价流程不仅极其复杂,而且非常耗时。此外,由于转让定价引发的冲突,组织部门经理之间可能会出现功能失调的行为。
  • 有时,无法找到用于确定独立交易价格(Arm’s Length Price)的独立非受控交易,导致实际上无法确定独立交易价格(ALP)。

5. Conclusion

无论企业规模大小,转让定价都已成为许多企业面临的国际税务问题。您可以在确保业务符合全球法规的前提下,利用转让定价来削减成本。

审查您的转让定价策略和文档,并结合转让定价的风险与收益进行评估,对于维护组织透明度至关重要。

尽管我们已经讨论了转让定价的大部分基本风险与收益,但仍有许多内容超出了本文的讨论范围。

阅读更多:GSTR-3B申报中总GST负债的应付利息

特许会计师 Kavit Vijay
本所合伙人 Kavit Vijay 在审计与鉴证领域拥有 15 年的从业经验。他负责领导本所的审计与鉴证部门,擅长领域包括:
了解作者详情

最新博客