IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iis/dispap/iiisdp458.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Economics of Advance Pricing Agreements

Author

Listed:
  • Johannes Becker

    (Institute of Public Economics, University of M\"{u}nster)

  • Ronald B. Davies

    (University College Dublin and Institute for International Integration Studies, Trinity College Dublin)

  • Gitte Jakobs

    (Institute of Public Economics, University of M\"{u}nster)

Abstract

Advance pricing agreements (APAs) determine transfer prices for intra-firm transactions in advance. This paper interprets these contracts as a means to overcome a hold-up problem that occurs because governments cannot commit to non-excessive future tax rates. In addition, with private information, just as in practice, our APAs will be complex and require lengthy negotiations. Nevertheless, implemented APAs lead to a Pareto improvement even when all agents are risk neutral. However, not all efficient APAs are concluded in equilibrium. International agreements to avoid double taxation will likely reduce the number of realized APAs.

Suggested Citation

  • Johannes Becker & Ronald B. Davies & Gitte Jakobs, 2014. "The Economics of Advance Pricing Agreements," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp458, IIIS.
    • Handle: RePEc:iis:dispap:iiisdp458
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.tcd.ie/triss/assets/PDFs/iiis/iiisdp458.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Theresa Lohse & Nadine Riedel, 2013. "Do Transfer Pricing Laws Limit International Income Shifting? Evidence from European Multinationals," CESifo Working Paper Series 4404, CESifo.
    2. Ronald B. Davies & Julien Martin & Mathieu Parenti & Farid Toubal, 2018. "Knocking on Tax Haven’s Door: Multinational Firms and Transfer Pricing," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(1), pages 120-134, March.
    3. Jonathan Thomas & Tim Worrall, 1994. "Foreign Direct Investment and the Risk of Expropriation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(1), pages 81-108.
    4. Johannes Becker & Ronald B. Davies, 2014. "A Negotiation-Based Model of Tax-Induced Transfer Pricing," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp451, IIIS.
    5. Baron, David P & Myerson, Roger B, 1982. "Regulating a Monopolist with Unknown Costs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 911-930, July.
    6. Bartelsman, Eric J. & Beetsma, Roel M. W. J., 2003. "Why pay more? Corporate tax avoidance through transfer pricing in OECD countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 2225-2252, September.
    7. Kimberly A. Clausing, 2000. "The Impact of Transfer Pricing on Intrafirm Trade," NBER Chapters, in: International Taxation and Multinational Activity, pages 173-200, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Peter K. Schott, 2006. "Transfer Pricing by U.S.-Based Multinational Firms," NBER Working Papers 12493, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Sebastian Kessing & Kai Konrad & Christos Kotsogiannis, 2009. "Federalism, weak institutions and the competition for foreign direct investment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 16(1), pages 105-123, February.
    10. Rainer Lanz & Sébastien Miroudot, 2011. "Intra-Firm Trade: Patterns, Determinants and Policy Implications," OECD Trade Policy Papers 114, OECD Publishing.
    11. Tomohara, Akinori, 2004. "Inefficiencies of Bilateral Advanced Pricing Agreements (BAPA) in Taxing Multinational Companies," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 57(4), pages 863-873, December.
    12. De Waegenaere, Anja & Sansing, Richard & Wielhouwer, Jacco L., 2007. "Using Bilateral Advance Pricing Agreements to Resolve Tax Transfer Pricing Disputes," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 60(2), pages 173-191, June.
    13. Diller, Markus & Vollert, Pia, 2011. "Economic analysis of advance tax rulings," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 122, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
    14. Michael J. Keen & Christos Kotsogiannis, 2002. "Does Federalism Lead to Excessively High Taxes?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 363-370, March.
    15. Eaton, Jonathan & Gersovitz, Mark, 1984. "A Theory of Expropriation and Deviations from Perfect Capital Mobility," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 94(373), pages 16-40, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chen, An & Hieber, Peter & Sureth, Caren, 2022. "Pay for tax certainty? Advance tax rulings for risky investment under multi-dimensional tax uncertainty," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 273, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
    2. Rathke, Alex A.T., 2019. "Fuzzy Profit Shifting: A Model for Optimal Tax-induced Transfer Pricing with Fuzzy Arm's Length Parameter," MPRA Paper 91425, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Johannes Becker & Ronald B. Davies, 2015. "Negotiated Transfer Prices," Working Papers 201527, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    4. Thomas Tørsløv & Ludvig Wier & Gabriel Zucman, 2023. "Externalities in International Tax Enforcement: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 497-525, May.
    5. Rathke, Alex A.T., 2019. "Fuzzy Profit Shifting: A Model for Optimal Tax-induced Transfer Pricing with Fuzzy Arm's Length Parameter," EconStor Preprints 191027, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    6. Alex A. T. Rathke & Amaury J. Rezende & Christoph Watrin & Rafael M. Antônio, 2023. "Profit shifting and the attractiveness of Advance Pricing Agreements," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 93(5), pages 817-857, July.
    7. Alex A. T. Rathke, 2019. "Fuzzy Profit Shifting: A Model for Optimal Tax-induced Transfer Pricing with Fuzzy Arm's Length Parameter," Papers 1901.03843, arXiv.org.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Holzmann, Carolin Maria, 2016. "Transfer pricing as tax avoidance under different legislative schemes," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145929, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Arnt Ove Hopland & Petro Lisowsky & Mohammed Mardan & Dirk Schindler, 2014. "Income Shifting under Losses," CESifo Working Paper Series 5130, CESifo.
    3. Johannes Becker & Michael Kriebel, 2017. "Fiscal equalisation schemes under competition," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 24(5), pages 800-816, September.
    4. Alex A. T. Rathke & Amaury J. Rezende & Christoph Watrin & Rafael M. Antônio, 2023. "Profit shifting and the attractiveness of Advance Pricing Agreements," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 93(5), pages 817-857, July.
    5. Nicolay, Katharina & Nusser, Hannah & Pfeiffer, Olena, 2017. "On the interdependency of profit shifting channels and the effectiveness of anti-avoidance legislation," ZEW Discussion Papers 17-066, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    6. Kessing, Sebastian G. & Konrad, Kai A. & Kotsogiannis, Christos, 2006. "Federal tax autonomy and the limits of cooperation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 317-329, March.
    7. Julien Martin, 2018. "Planification fiscale des sociétés québécoises et recours aux paradis fiscaux," CIRANO Project Reports 2018rp-20, CIRANO.
    8. Johannes Becker & Ronald B Davies, 2014. "A negotiation-based model of tax-induced transfer pricing," Working Papers 1409, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    9. V. Vicard, 2015. "Profit shifting through transfer pricing: evidence from French firm level trade data," Working papers 555, Banque de France.
    10. Hayato Kato & Hirofumi Okoshi, 2022. "Economic Integration And Agglomeration Of Multinational Production With Transfer Pricing," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1325-1355, August.
    11. Anca D. Cristea & Daniel X. Nguyen, 2016. "Transfer Pricing by Multinational Firms: New Evidence from Foreign Firm Ownerships," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 170-202, August.
    12. Ronald B. Davies & Julien Martin & Mathieu Parenti & Farid Toubal, 2018. "Knocking on Tax Haven’s Door: Multinational Firms and Transfer Pricing," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(1), pages 120-134, March.
    13. Hayato Kato & Hirofumi Okoshi, 2019. "Production location of multinational firms under transfer pricing: the impact of the arm’s length principle," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(4), pages 835-871, August.
    14. Dekker, Vincent & Strohmaier, Kristina, 2017. "The effect of transfer pricing regulations on intra-industry trade," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 32-2017, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.
    15. Rathke, Alex A.T., 2019. "Fuzzy Profit Shifting: A Model for Optimal Tax-induced Transfer Pricing with Fuzzy Arm's Length Parameter," MPRA Paper 91425, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Roberto Crotti, 2021. "Does Intangible Asset Intensity Increase Profit-Shifting Opportunities of Multinationals?," IHEID Working Papers 02-2021, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    17. Rathke, Alex Augusto Timm & Rezende, Amaury José, 2016. "Exploring the characteristics of transfer pricing systems across countries," EconStor Preprints 130141, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    18. Alex A. T. Rathke, 2019. "Fuzzy Profit Shifting: A Model for Optimal Tax-induced Transfer Pricing with Fuzzy Arm's Length Parameter," Papers 1901.03843, arXiv.org.
    19. Lu, Bing & Wang, Yaqi, 2024. "Multinationals' profits in China: Impact of tax avoidance," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    20. Cyril Chalendard, 2016. "Shifting-Profits through Tax Loopholes. Evidence from Ecuador," CESifo Working Paper Series 6240, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Advance Pricing Agreements; Corporate Taxation; Multinational Firms; Transfer Pricing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iis:dispap:iiisdp458. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Maeve (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cetcdie.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.