The Growing Abuse of Transfer Pricing by TNCs

The large-scale tax avoidance practices used by transnational corporations (TNCs) came into public notice recently when the giant drug corporation, GlaxoSmithKline, agreed to pay the US government $3.4 billion to settle a long-running dispute over its tax dealings between the UK parent company and its American subsidiary. This was the largest settlement of a tax dispute in the US. The investigations carried out by Internal Revenue Service found that the American subsidiary of GlaxoSmithKline overpaid its UK parent company for drug supplies during 1989-2005 period, mainly its blockbuster drug, Zantac. These overpayments were meant to reduce the company’s profit in the US and thereby…