Colombia Publishes Guidelines On Advance Pricing Agreements

Colombia's National Directorate of Taxes and Customs (DIAN) released detailed guidelines (the Guidelines) to clarify the procedure for Advanced Transfer Pricing Agreements (APAs) requests in order to ensure certainty between the parties regarding their transfer pricing arrangements. These guidelines are the result of cooperation with the OECD and World Bank Group, including the work carried out by Randall Fox and Joel Cooper during their time at the World Bank Group.

Key features

The new guidelines cover three types of APAs:

1. Unilateral APAs – whereby an agreement is entered into between a taxpayer and the Colombian tax authorities alone.
2. Bilateral APAs – whereby a taxpayer requests that the Colombian Competent Authority reach an advance pricing agreement with a double tax convention partner in accordance with the arm's length principle under the applicable double tax convention.