Fellow of Institute of Chartered Accountants

Professional Background

Stuart, an Associate Director with Moore Stephens, is an experienced transfer pricing specialist. He provides counsel on the planning, structuring and pricing of international related party transactions as well as teaming with our clients to justify and document their pricing arrangements. In addition to extensive experience in transfer pricing planning and documenting, Stuart has significant and broad experience in the defence of transfer prices on audit; indeed, he has been engaged to assist on some of the largest transfer pricing disputes in the country.

Stuart's clients have spanned smaller private company groups to large public companies and have included a diverse range of industries, including automotive, pharmaceutical, technology, engineering, mining and distributors.

Multinational corporations are well advised to ensure that they have a robust tax risk governance framework and implementing a coordinated approach to assessing and managing 'transfer pricing risk' is one element of that framework. Stuart is a strong proponent of evaluating the appropriateness of entering into an Advance Pricing Arrangement (APA) as a way of 'managing' transfer pricing risk. In this regard he has been instrumental in the consummation of numerous APAs including the first bilateral 'commissionaire' structured APA entered into by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).

Given the present global economic challenges and uncertainties, an APA may provide a valuable means of 'engaging' with the ATO in a co-operative, transparent manner to address transfer pricing risk. This is particularly so for those entities that are undergoing supply chain restructuring to enhance their operational performance and tax efficiency, he says. APAs can be equally important for entities with significant international related party transactions which can result in uncertainty around tax positions adopted.

Surprisingly, some taxpayers have not documented their transfer pricing arrangements to evidence that their international transactions have been priced on an "arm's length" basis. It is difficult to understand why this is so, Stuart says, particularly given that the quality of a taxpayer's transfer pricing documentation will often determine whether and the extent of transfer pricing penalties imposed.