New TPR-C form: new challenges and requirements

Tomasz BEGER
Tax Partner at RSM Poland

This article is going to offer insight into some of the latest changes brought by the Regulation of the Minister of Finance, Funds and Regional Policy of 18 December 2020 amending the regulation on transfer pricing information in personal income tax and corporate income tax to be reported in TPR-P and TPR-C forms. The said provisions have been in force since 1 January 2021 and apply to transfer pricing reporting for a tax year commencing after 31 December 2019.

Introduction

Completing the TPR form for 2019 correctly was truly problematic and raised a lot of questions, some of which were about the structure of the form itself, as it was not adjusted to a complex range of business transactions concluded between related entities. Despite the fact that the Ministry of Finance (hereinafter: the MF) published answers to 100 of the most frequently asked questions about completing the TPR form, taxpayers still were not sure about how to complete it correctly. Another amendment of this form will most probably raise further questions, so let us have a look at some changes brought by the amendment of transfer pricing reporting regulations.

Restructuring and other transactions

One of the major changes in the TPR is that there are now more categories of restructuring transactions.

The amendment of the TPR form has introduced as many as 13 transaction categories for restructuring (...).

The amendment of the TPR form has introduced as many as 13 transaction categories for restructuring, among others related to mergers, divisions and acquisitions, exchange of shares, changed functional profile, transfer of intangible assets and rights thereon, as well as transfers of staff between entities. Thus, taxpayers will have to report restructuring transactions’ data in more detail; in the previous form template, this data was reported to a limited extent.

Object of controlled transaction

In line with the recommendations of the Transfer Pricing Forum, the amended TPR form includes a new field called Object of controlled transaction, where you have to briefly identify the transaction’s object. This is clearly welcome news, because entering a couple of transactions of the same category to the TPR form was not very clear and could lead to some unintentional errors. With the said modifications in place, it is going to be much easier to complete the TPR form, in particular in the discussed case.

Value of controlled transactions

The amendment has also changed the way transaction value is to be reported. Previously, the value of controlled transactions was reported in millions PLN, rounded to two decimal places. After the amendment, transaction value shall be reported in thousands PLN (without VAT) as at the last day of the relevant TPR period. Data on financial transactions shall be reported differently now, as well. In the field Value of debt you have to enter the amount of debt or deposit at the end of the transfer pricing reporting period. According to earlier regulations, you had to provide the average value of the debt or deposit as at the beginning and at the end of the period. The method of reporting data in the Value of debt field stays the same only for cash pooling transactions.

Modifications have also been introduced in the way interest and remuneration amounts are reported in transactions of surety or guarantee. For transactions concluded since 2020, interest (or remuneration in the case of surety o guarantee) receivable and accrued as well as actually received or paid should be disclosed separately.

What is more, if the controlled transaction is subject to withholding tax, you have to provide the before-tax value.

Methods for transfer pricing verification

The amendment of TPR regulations introduced by the MF results in many changes in the way the results of the transfer pricing analysis carried out with ‘another method’ are presented.

For controlled transactions concluded since 2020, the taxpayer is going to have 7 methods to choose from when verifying whether their transfer pricing is at arms’ length (...).

For controlled transactions concluded since 2020, the taxpayer is going to have 7 methods to choose from when verifying whether their transfer pricing is at arms’ length, e.g. income methods (here the value of the discount factor should be provided), asset-based method, statistical methods or a combination of two or more methods. What is more, you can also opt for a Compliance analysis if i the preparation of a benchmarking study is not feasible. In such a case, you have to provide the source of data you relied upon in your compliance analysis.

Summary

The discussed modifications of the TPR form are not the only ones introduced by the MF to be in force as of 1 January 2021. The remaining ones are as follows:

• Obligation to report netting data;
• Different method of reporting data on interest rates: not basis points but percentages with four decimal places, for transactions where the financing, surety or guarantee is either granted or obtained, transactions of liquidity management and deposit;
• Requirement to identify the type of benchmark applied in a benchmarking study for financial transactions;
• Requirement to complete information on the type of analysis or the type of benchmark applied for controlled transactions involving the provision or use of intangible assets.

When making a final assessment of the process of amending the TPR form regulations, it must be noted that the MF surely addressed the most frequent requests and doubts raised by taxpayers who were required to complete and submit the aforementioned document. The changes that have been introduced should be welcome to a great extent, because they allow taxpayers to save some time and money and minimise the amount of unintended errors made when completing TPR forms. On the other hand, the amendment requires taxpayers to report data on controlled transactions in more detail. Thus, it seems that at the end of the day it is swings and roundabouts.