Gambia: GRA Boosts Transfer Pricing Audits to Protect Tax Revenue

What the report says

The Gambia Revenue Authority has launched a technical assistance programme aimed at improving its ability to spot and audit transfer pricing risks tied to multinational companies and related-party transactions, according to Foroyaa via AllAfrica. The initiative is designed to give tax officers more hands-on experience in an area that can be difficult to enforce without specialist training.

The programme, called the Transfer Pricing Technical Assistance Mission and Practical Audit Support Programme, is supported by the African Tax Administration Forum and the World Bank. GRA Commissioner General Yankuba Darboe said the effort is meant to move staff beyond classroom learning and into practical audit work, including risk assessment, case selection, planning, transaction analysis and the steps needed to complete defensible audits.

Darboe linked the training to the GRA’s broader push to strengthen domestic revenue mobilisation. He said cross-border transactions and related-party structures can be used to shift profits between jurisdictions, which can reduce tax collected in countries with limited technical capacity. He also said the authority is working on its legal and regulatory framework, including draft transfer pricing regulations shared by ATAF and the World Bank.

The report said the GRA views the programme as part of a longer-term effort to build institutional capacity, not just train a small group of officers. Cautious background context: transfer pricing rules are commonly used by tax authorities around the world to check whether multinational firms are properly pricing transactions within the same corporate group and paying tax where profits are generated.