Ireland has introduced a formal bilateral advance pricing
agreement (APA) programme which will be effective as of July 1
2016. It may now be preferable to initiate your bilateral APA
in Ireland.
The Irish Revenue Commissioners (Revenue) published guidelines
on June 23, which detail the scope, procedure and administrative
requirements of the APA programme. These guidelines are in
accordance with the best-practice recommendations of the BEPS
Action 14 final report. The APA programme will replace
Revenue's existing ad hoc approach to agreeing APAs and will
provide increased certainty and transparency for taxpayers with
multi-jurisdictional operations.
Scope of the APA Programme
The APA programme will apply to complex transfer pricing (TP)
issues only, where the appropriate application of the
arm's-length principle is in doubt or there is a significant
risk of double taxation. Revenue list a number of factors
which indicate the appropriateness of a particular matter
