Transfer pricing enables some companies with overseas ownership to gain an unfair advantage some participants in a recent survey of larger businesses observed.
Research conducted by TNS-BMRB part of BMRB Limited found that some respondents felt transfer pricing was ‘an area in which companies with overseas ownership were able to unfairly reduce the tax they paid’.
The respondents suggested that HMRC should focus resources on transfer pricing and disclosure regimes to increase the effectiveness of its strategy. But the researchers pointed out that ‘HMRC has undertaken a lot of work in this area already’.
The 2009 edition of HMRC’s Large Business Customer Survey exploring ‘large business customers' experience of their relationship with HMRC’ covered some areas including tax avoidance and the administrative burden of taxes for the first time.
Most ‘customers’ were reported to be ‘confident they would know what HMRC would consider...