Arcotia Hatsidimitris - International Tax Dialogue

98 – ANNEX C
The tax audit services will examine the company’s file which contains tax returns, including
documents mentioning foreign companies (holding or subsidiaries), transactions that must be declared
(like loan agreements), royalties, commissions or fees paid to foreign companies (which may be part
of the same group), legal statutes (which can mention foreign shareholders or chief executive officer),
previous tax audit reports, the group diagram etc.
In a second review, the tax audit services will focus on further technical information: loss
companies, important financial charges where loans are contracted with a shareholder or with an
associated company, variations of royalties paid after a shareholder's change with no change of
turnover, financial and economical ratios and other information.
All of that information can be searched for on public or private databases, company websites,
newspaper or economic journals.
Typical process with transfer pricing expert
Below is a description of a typical process used by the French national and international tax audit
directorate (DVNI) when preparing a transfer pricing audit. Other ways can be followed but it is a
good starting point to shorten time spent on transfer pricing cases.
• Step 1: during the preparation of the annual tax audit planning, operational tax audit services,
transfer pricing consulting team and tax audit head office draw up a list of the companies
where transfer pricing issues have been detected; at this stage, they collect a first set of
information on those companies.
• Step 2: the planning board identifies companies to be audited where transfer pricing experts
should help general auditors on transfer pricing issues. It establishes a forward-looking
calendar of the audits.
• Step 3: from the moment they have their tax audit planning, general tax auditors and transfer
pricing experts can gather more detailed information on the companies to be audited, by
consulting internal and public or private databases: economic, financial and tax information,
information on the group holding the companies, where subsidiaries are located, etc.
• Step 4: planning the first meeting with the taxpayer: the general tax auditor and the transfer
pricing expert determine a common schedule and establish a list of questions on the activity
of the taxpayer, its relations with the other entities of the group.
• Step 5: during the first tax audit meeting (or the first transfer pricing audit meeting if
different), they identify the transfer pricing specialist of the company or transfer pricing
advisor with whom the audit team will manage the transfer pricing issues.
• Step 6: after a few meetings with the taxpayer, and as soon as possible, it will be determined
if the help of the transfer pricing expert is still required and if so they will remain on the
audit of transfer pricing issues, but if not, their contribution will stop.
• Step 7: where no transfer pricing expert has been planned in Step 1, the general auditor and
his manager may nonetheless require this help, quite soon after the first meeting with the
taxpayer.
DEALING EFFECTIVELY WITH THE CHALLENGES OF TRANSFER PRICING © OECD 2012