The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) will deepen its transfer pricing capabilities to help businesses with cross-border tax issues.

Minister of State for Finance and Transport, Mrs Josephine Teo, said that IRAS supports cross-border businesses engaged in activities "with real economic substance".

"General anti-avoidance provisions in our tax regime are set up to prevent abusive business transactions," she said.

Transfer pricing is method of attributing a company's profits or losses before tax to certain tax jurisdictions which might be more favourable.

Mrs Teo was speaking at the inaugural Asia-Pacific Regional Tax Conference, organised by the International Fiscal Assocation Singapore and Tax Academy of Singapore. It will run from April 2 to 4.

The minister added that Singapore has a wide tax treaty network to help businesses overcome instances of double taxation - when multiple tax jurisdictions impose separate and sometimes conflicting tax rules which can result in cross-border business transactions being taxed more than once.

About 210 tax professionals from all over the world are registered to attend the two and a half day conference, at the Shangri-La Hotel.