Italy Refines Transfer Pricing Methodology
/Published on: TP Week - 24 May 2018
On May 14 2018, the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance issued a decree providing guidelines for the application of the Italian transfer pricing provisions, following relevant public consultation (the decree).
The Italian transfer pricing provisions, art. 110 para. 7 of the Italian Income Tax Code, had been amended in 2017 in line with the OECD Guidelines, as updated in July 2017 following the BEPS project.
The decree is composed of nine articles and in line with the OECD Guidelines on transfer pricing – these have been explicitly taken into account, according to the preamble. Further implementing provisions are expected to be issued by the Italian Revenue Agency, in particular with regards to updates of the OECD Guidelines.
In more detail, concerning the concept of control, the decree confirms the approach of the tax administration requiring verification of legal as well as economic control for the application of transfer pricing regulations.
The decree also adopts the notion of comparability as provided in the OECD Guidelines. For the assessment of comparability, it affirms the need to proceed with the analysis of the economically significant characteristics of the transactions (contractual terms, functional analysis, characteristics of goods and services, economic circumstances, company strategies).
