Revised Guidance on the Application of the Transactional Profit Split Method. INCLUSIVE FRAMEWORK ON BEPS: ACTIONS 10. The guidance set out in this report responds to the mandate under Action 10 of the BEPS Action Plan, which required the development of: “… rules to prevent BEPS by engaging in transactions which would not, or would only very rarely, occur between third parties. This will involve adopting transfer pricing rules or special measures to: … (ii) clarify the application of transfer pricing methods, in particular profit splits, in the context of global value chains;…” The OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines have included guidance on the transactional profit split method since their first iteration in 1995. Since the revision to the Guidelines in 2010, the transactional profit split method has been applicable where it is found to be the most appropriate method to the case at hand. This basic premise is unchanged. However, this revised guidance, while not being prescriptive, clarifies and significantly expands the guidance on when a profit split method may be the most appropriate method. It describes presence of one or more of the following indicators as being relevant: Each party makes unique and valuable contributions; The business operations are highly integrated such that the contributions of the parties cannot be reliably evaluated in isolation from each other; The parties share the assumption of economically significant risks, or separately assume closely related risks. The guidance makes clear that while a lack of comparables is, by itself, insufficient to warrant the use of the profit split method, if, conversely, reliable comparables are available it is unlikely that the method will be the most appropriate. The revised text also expands the guidance on how the profit split method should be applied, including determining the relevant profits to be split, and appropriate profit splitting factors. Sixteen examples are included in the revised guidance to illustrate the principles discussed in the text, and demonstrate how the method might be applied in practice. These will be included in Annex II to Chapter II of the Guidelines. June 2018.
