Management Fee – koncernintern fakturering av ledningskostnader ur ett skatterättsligt perspektiv

Sammanfattning: Management Fee, the billing of Management costs within an organization, is a part of the Transfer Pricing doctrine. Transfer Pricing has grown to become one of the most important parts of the global trade in the world today. One of the main principles regarding Transfer Pricing is the arm’s lengths principle and it is present through all major documents of the area. The main idea behind the arm’s lengths principle is to make companies within the same organization behave like companies without a relationship and negotiate a Transfer Price as close to a market price as possible. The Swedish version of the arm’s length principle is found in Inkomstskattelagen and its 14th chapter 19th§. It works as a rule of correction with which a incorrect Transfer Pricing can be corrected. This thesis takes a broad approach at Management Fee to fulfil the purpose of the thesis, which is to analyse the taxation of Management Fee from a number of important taxation principles. This thesis doesn’t have an international comparison due to length limitations. The Transfer Pricing area is characterized by its lack of laws and precedent cases. Because of this, the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines has become the most important document regarding this area. This document covers most topics regarding the Transfer Pricing area, Management Fee though is notably absent from this document. The OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines has a strong position in Sweden due to a comment in a case known as the Shell case (RÅ 1991 ref. 107). Since this case the Swedish taxation agency has given this document an unreasonable high status. This is shown in the taxation tutorial released by the taxation agency, where the chapter regarding Transfer Pricing is a translation of the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines. In my thesis I criticize the Swedish taxation agency for this behaviour. In my opinion there has to be a law regarding taxation matters, elevating a document made by a non-governmental organization to law-status is a dangerous way of not dealing with a problem. It also goes against Swedish regulatory powers and rules. In the thesis I also discuss the similarities and differences between Management Fee and shareholder costs where Management Fee is a billable cost and shareholder costs are unbillable. The differences between these two costs are very small in some ways, which I also discuss at length in this thesis. Finally I want to point out that most Swedish and international authorities and organizations allow billing of Management Fee to subsidiaries, making the legal position in this matter clear. I conclude the thesis by suggesting a comprehensive investigation into Transfer Pricing in Swedish context with the goal being a new chapter covering the area in Inkomstskattelagen. This mostly because the entire Swedish Transfer Pricing doctrine is built up around two paragraphs and the dependence on OECD.