I.- Introduction.
The transfer pricing system in Spain was the object of profound modification as a consequence of Law 36/2006 of 29th November, regarding measures for the prevention of tax fraud, an essential element of which was the introduction of the requirement of specific documentation obligations regarding related party transactions. The aim of the new Law 27/2014 of 27th November, regarding Corporate Tax, is to simplify and streamline the regulation of these operations.
II. Main developments.
– Submission criteria: the exception which exempted the documentation obligation of entities with a net turnover of less than ten million Euro and a total of related party transactions not exceeding in total 100,000 Euros of market value has disappeared. Therefore, the documentation obligation shall affect all kinds of companies regardless of their size, even if there continue to be certain operations, which do not need to be documented.
– Specific documentation: specific documentation to be prepared by entities subject to the measures shall have simplified contents for those entities or groups of entities whose net turnover is less than 45 million Euro.
– Restriction of the relationship perimeter: connection in the area of partner-company relations shall be fixed at a 25% participation, compared to the 5% participation required up until now.
– Evaluation methods: the hierarchy of methods contained in the previous regulations for determining the market value of related party transactions is eliminated. Therefore, from now on the five methods (comparable uncontrolled price, cost plus pricing, resale price, profit split and transactional net margin methods) may be applied without preference.
– Penalty system: In case of omission, inaccuracy or falsification of the data reported, the penalties shall be reduced from 1,500 Euro to 1,000 Euro (for each piece of data) and from 15,000 Euro to 10,000 Euro (for a dataset).
III.- Conclusion.
The new Corporate Tax Law shall enter into force on 1st January 2015; therefore these new developments shall be applicable to fiscal years commencing on this date.
Vilá Abogados
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12th December 2014
