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Transfer Pricing

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Transfer Pricing

An Overview

Transfer pricing is a popular topic in management accounting. It is concerned with the price when one department (the selling department) provides goods or services to another department (the buying department). That is, one department generates revenue from the sales of goods or services and the other department incurs expenses from the purchases of goods or services. Transfer pricing is closely related to responsibility accounting in which each department is responsible for its cost, revenue, expense or investment return depending on the type of centre it is. Thus, transfer pricing effectiveness is essential to the success of the overall company. The related key issue is the determination of a transfer …show more content…

Consequently, the determining factor is whether the buying division is willing to pay the market price. If the buying division is willing to do so, the implication is that the buying division can generate incremental profits for the company by purchasing the product from the selling division and either reselling it or using the product in its own production process. On the other hand, if the buying division is unwilling to pay the market price, the implication is that corporate profits are maximized when the selling division sells the product on the external market, even if this leaves the buying division idle.

Sometimes, there are cost savings on internal transfers compared with external sales. These savings might arise, for example, because the selling division can avoid a customer credit check and collection efforts, and the buying division might avoid inspection procedures in the receiving department. Market-based transfer pricing continues to align managerial incentives with corporate goals, even in the presence of these cost savings, if appropriate adjustments are made to the transfer price (i.e., the market-based transfer price should be reduced by these cost savings).

However, many intermediate products do not have readily-available market prices. Examples are: a pharmaceutical company with a drug under patent protection (an effective monopoly); and an appliance company that makes component parts in the Parts Division and transfers those parts to

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