Comments on the Draft Revised Guidance on Profit Splits

The BMG has made a submission on the Draft Revised Guidance on Profit Splits.

This discussion draft (DD) offers a rewrite of Section C in Part III of Chapter II of the Transfer Pricing Guidelines. Such a rewrite is overdue, as there has not been a comprehensive re-examination of the profit-split method (PSM) since it was included in the Guidelines in 1995.

This DD is written in a much clearer way than the existing section and we welcome the effort that has been made. However, we regret that the opportunity has not been taken to develop and extend the PSM to make it easier to use. In our view this would be the most effective way forward to achieving the central mandate of the BEPS project, to ensure that multinationals are taxed ‘where economic activities occur and value is created’.

In these comments we provide a specific approach that would allow easy use for tax authorities and taxpayers alike. The principal reason for this is that solely objective factors (e.g. personnel, assets, etc.) are used to apportion profits. This approach would ignore internal group-controlled and tax-motivated arrangements such as intercompany contractual terms. It would also dispense with the need for subjective value judgments, greatly reducing the potential for conflict and uncertainty.