Transfer Pricing Documentation : - In Need Of A Harmonization?

Abstract: In today's global world where internal cross-border transactions are made in a vast amount and thereby affect the economy to a large extent the area of transfer pricing has become more important than ever. Therefore the organization for economic co-operation and de-velopment (OECD) have started the base erosion and profit shifting project which aims to prevent the exploiting of gaps and differences of regulations in different states in cross-border transactions. Within this project the documentation requirements are discussed, more specifically a potential harmonization of the requirements. 30 July 2013 a white paper on the subject was published which led to a suggested draft for changes in the Chapter V of the OECD transfer pricing guidelines.This thesis aims to answer the question of whether or not there is a need for harmoniza-tion in the area of transfer pricing documentation and whether or not the purposed discus-sion draft fulfills the potential need in an appropriate manner. How this affect the Swedish documentation requirements is also asked. The Code of conduct on transfer pricing docu-mentation for associated enterprises in the European Union (EU TPD) is an existing form of harmonizing the documentation requirements which is also analyzed and to some extent compared to the suggested changes in the draft.The lack of harmonization in such a cross-border dependent area has shown to be prob-lematic and the possible gains for both taxpayers and tax administrations on a global basis suggests that a harmonization is desirable. Some aspects of the draft are still in need of clar-ification but all in all the draft is desired, the reactions of the industry also support this conclusion. The draft is moving towards a similar harmonization as the EU TPD and since the EU TPD is based on the current OECD transfer pricing guidelines it is inevitable to find clear similarities.