HMRC have announced the launch of a 'radical' new approach to the way it deals with transfer pricing.
The Revenue announced last October that they would introduce such a move, involving greater specialisation and team work, a focus on issues of higher risk, action plans for enquiries agreed where possible with companies, and active monitoring of progress.
The new technical specialism reaches across HMRC operational, economic analysis and policy units.
Transfer pricing specialists are now being appointed, and arrangements are being made to provide additional training to enhance their skills.
HMRC said that plans for resolving transfer pricing enquiries within 18 or 36 months, depending on complexity, are largely in place.
A new internal governance process will start to operate from this month to address issues on consistency of approach, allocation of resource to risk and wider departmental strategic objectives.
In April, the Revenue hopes to publish statistics about the average time taken to resolve transfer pricing enquiries that were settled in the three months from January to March, as well as the average age of open enquiries at the end of that quarter.
