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Dear Readers,

I would like to present to you the 33rd edition of our
magazine, the Tax Tribune. We continue to publish it online
in order to make it available for a wider number of our
colleagues in tax administrations. Tax Tribune aims to
spotlight latest trends, provide new insights and ideas and
analysis of implications of practical tax administration issues.
This edition contains five very informative articles about
current issues affecting the work of tax officers. One article is discussing transfer
pricing, one the fraud affecting tax revenues and social spending, and three articles
are centered around the topic of VAT.

The article of David Gilles highlights the connection between tax fraud and social
security fraud. It underlines that the weight of frauds on public finances and their
perception by the general public have forced many governments to adopt new
regulations and new institutions. The article gives a general overview on the French
experience in this subject.

Edgars Hercenbergs challenges the practical application of comparable uncontrolled
price (CUP) method in the transfer pricing approaches by analysing several specific
cases. The article raises considerations over flexibility of the CUP method against the
strict requirements of performing economically relevant analysis and comparability
adjustments in order to determine whether multinational businesses comply with
transfer pricing rules following the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines.

The effective use of VAT returns data in early detection of VAT evasion and fraud
cases is in the focus of Irina Andrejeva’s article. It highlights the importance of VAT
for state budgets and the protection of VAT systems from violations and presents
Latvia’s example in the subject.

Germán de Melo Ponce highlights how the Spanish Tax & Customs Administration
(Agencia Tributaria) has been tackling the VAT fraud declared in customs procedure
42 (CPC 42), in close relationship with any VAT fraud concerning intra-EU
transactions. The article describes also the procedure of the problem's identification
and the applicable laws.

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