The materiality of the change in economically relevant circumstances created by the impact of government assistance available in a market may impose additional challenges to the comparability analysis. It may for example render it more difficult to apply the comparability analysis through the utilisation and/or the application of a particular transfer pricing method and search for comparable transactions, on the basis that comparability differences may be exacerbated due to variations in government assistance between comparables or between jurisdictions.40 For example, an uncontrolled transaction that might otherwise have been considered comparable to a particular controlled transaction might be considered not comparable by virtue of the fact that one of the transactions is subject to government assistance while the other is not. A revised strategy, and potentially the use of a corroborating transfer pricing methodology,41 may need to be applied in such cases to take account of the differences in comparability. See Chapter II of this guidance. 40 As the guidance in paragraph 2.143 of the OECD TPG indicates, the lack of comparables alone is insufficient to warrant the use of a transactional profit split. 41 In considering the use of more than one method, the guidance in paragraph 2.12 of the OECD TPG should be followed in any case ...

For example, assume that geographic comparability is deemed as the most relevant comparability factor given the nature of the effects of COVID-19 in a particular market. In these circumstances, in order to obtain reliable data from a particular market it may potentially be necessary to relax other comparability criteria, and then refine the sample ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has created economic conditions that often differ from those of previous years. In these circumstances, where a taxpayer rolls forward an existing set of comparables to cover FY2020, it may be necessary to review the suitability of these existing comparables and potentially in some cases, it may be useful to revise the set, based on updated search criteria ...