China - The new Corporate Income Tax Law and its effect on Transfer Pricing : and in particular the issue of documentation requirements

China has had a remarkable development since the late 1970s, when the Chinese government started opening up its internal market for the outside world. The Chinese legislation and the legal system itself have been developing rapidly to adapt to the new economic environment, however not without complications. Many uncertainties still remain. Under the old income tax regime, corporations on the Chinese market were taxed under two different systems, one for domestic enterprises and one for foreign invested enterprises and foreign enterprises. With the new Corporate Income Tax Law, these two systems were merged and new concepts introduced. The new income tax law includes important articles that affect the transfer pricing regime in China. The OECD’s transfer pricing regulations have served as a model when China first started to regulate their transfer pricing, there are consequently similarities between the two. Multinational corporations consider the issue of transfer pricing as the most important issue in their international taxation. It is important both from the aspect of being the most effective way to maximize the world profit of the corporation and also in the aspect that an adjustment due to inaccuracies in the corporation’s transfer prices can be expensive. The Chinese transfer pricing system is considered to be young in comparison with other jurisdictions, for example the United States. The Chinese government and its tax authorities have in recent years put a lot of effort in improving the transfer pricing system and its execution. Due to the amount of loss in tax revenue that is believed to be due to transfer pricing measures, the issue is considered to be of outmost importance. The requirement on transfer pricing documentation has been an important issue for MNCs on the Chinese market, especially now when there is an interest levy on adjustments made through an audit. Since the current regulation on documentation is still quite vague, it constitutes an uncertainty for both taxpayers and tax authorities. However, an issuing of a clearer regulation on documentation requirements have long been anticipated but not yet released, although clarifying measures have been taken through the Corporate Income Tax Law and newly issued circulars during 2007