The Supreme Administrative Court issued the following two recent decisions relating to application of transfer pricing rules:
- The Court held that the relevant moment in time for determining relatedness for purposes of applying transfer pricing rules is the transaction date, and not the negotiation period. Thus, the tax authorities could not apply transfer pricing rules to challenge a 2008 sale of an industrial washing plant because the entities were not related on the transaction date, even if they were related during the negotiation period.
- The Court held that the tax authorities could not exclude from consideration one of two transfer pricing methods arguably applicable to determine the fair market value of brands if both methods are equally acceptable without proper justification. The Court held that if one of the methods is rejected without proper justification, any further adjustments made by the tax authorities to either method will not be considered legal.