Transfer pricing in Australian service organisations

Most transfer pricing studies focus on domestic or international manufacturing organisations. This paper reports the results of a survey of the domestic transfer pricing practices, in particular, objectives and methods of Australian service organisations. A novel aspect of this study was the exploration of the notion of “internal customer value” in the transfer pricing practices of service organisations. Survey responses from 80 large Australian service organisations indicate that goal congruence and ease of understanding transfer pricing are the most important objectives; cost-based and multiple methods of transfer pricing are most commonly adopted. This study also suggests that the value-based transfer pricing method is not adopted, and that lack of awareness of and interest in internal customer value typify the internal markets within the Australian service sector.