Asia-Pacific

India signs first bilateral APA

India signed its first bilateral advance pricing agreement (APA) on December 19, agreeing with Japan and a Japanese company to aspects of the company’s transfer pricing for five year term, according to a Central Board of Direct Taxes release. The CBDT said that the APA was finalized in about 18 months, and noted that this is a shorter period than most governments take to finalize an APA. See, release.

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Europe

EU passes amendment to stop hybrid loan mismatches

The Council of the European Union, on July 8, formally adopted an amendment to the parent-subsidiary directive to prevent multinational groups from achieving double non-taxation from hybrid loan arrangements. A political agreement on the matter was reached on June 20. States have until December 31, 2015, to add the amendment to their laws. Press release; Amendment to Council Directive: 10996/14, 11291/14, 11291/14 ADD1; Prior coverage

Americas

U.S. transfer pricing official concerned about BEPS project, clarifies transfer pricing roadmap

The OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) initiative has increased tax controversies between nations and is likely to continue to do so in the future, Samuel Maruca, U.S. IRS Director of Transfer Pricing Operations said April 30.

“My fear is that some of our treaty partners view this as a license [and are] reaching out and helping [themselves] to the tax base,” said Maruca, who spoke during a webinar sponsored by EY. Maruca . . .

Americas

US and India still dispute transfer pricing margins

The US and India remain at loggerheads over the percentage of profit to be allocated to India subsidiaries of US IT and ITeS companies, with US pushing for a 12 – 13 percent rate and India unwilling to go below 18 percent, according to a an April 9 Financial Express article written by Santosh Tiwari. An unnamed official quoted by Tiwari suggested that “the way forward could be to tackle the existing cases at a higher rate and new cases at the rate closer to what the US wants.” Read More: Financial Express