Súdne spory v oblasti transferového oceňovania na Slovensku – relevancia OECD smernice o transferovom oceňovaní

The legal relevance of the OECD TP Guidelines in Slovakia has already been addressed in the previous literature with the seemingly surprising conclusion that despite its general acceptance in practice, it is not a source of law and the principle of iura novit curia does not apply to it. The object of this article is to supplement the existing state of knowledge by identifying the reasons that led to the procedural tactics of taxpayers who challenged the OECD TP Guidelines and its legal relevance en bloc in Slovakia and formulating considerations on how the OECD TP Guidelines should be approached in both application and judicial practice. Disputes between taxpayers and tax administrators to date indicate that there are fundamental defects in the approach to the OECD TP Guidelines, where its individual sentences are referred to as legal norms, which inevitably leads to disputes over the interpretation of this non-binding (soft law) document. Thus, a prerequisite for the OECD TP Guidelines to be enforced is their consistent application by both taxpayers and tax administrators. However, despite the above, it cannot be reasonably expected the OECD TP Guidelines would be relevant in the event of litigation. None of the statements contained therein are capable of overcoming the factual situation established by the evidence gathered (i.e., establishing a legal fiction) or of completing the factual situation where it is not apparent from the evidence (i.e., establishing a legal presumption). The key in a dispute before the court will therefore always be a proper finding of the facts and precise reasoning in any tax assessment decision. This understandably raises the demands on the quality of the tax administrator’s reasons for its decisions.