Tax Compliance Costs for Companies in an Enlarged European Community

With 18 National Reports and Contributions by Tax Experts

When it comes to taxation, administrative costs to the tax authorities and compliance costs to the taxpayers arise. A lot of studies have already been conducted in order to shed more light on such "hidden costs" of taxation.

Particularly in the field of transfer pricing, administrative and compliance costs are assumed to be quite high due to the obligation of computing and documenting an arm's length price for each intra-group-transaction.

Apparently, European policy makers have also become aware of this problem since the European Commission's report released in 2001 ("Company Taxation in the Internal Market") recommends targeted measures in the short run and comprehensive ones in the long run, crossing the border line of the currently prevailing transfer pricing approach, inter alia in order to combat compliance costs in the field of transfer pricing.

18 National reports from countries all over the world and a general report deal with the basics of administrative and compliance costs of taxation in general as well as compliance costs in the field of transfer pricing in particular. The book is completed by three special reports on certain issues. The findings of the reports included is greatly influenced by the discussions on the occasion of the Jean Monnet Conference on this topic which was held in spring 2006 in Rust (Austria) under the academic guidance of the Institute for Austrian and International Tax Law at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration.