transfer pricing, a special type of exporting called intracorporate sales, refers to the prices one subsidiary of a company charges a second subsidiary for goods and services. eg. An item costs $1000 to produce in Australia. It is sold to a Malaysian subsidiary for $1000. Hence $0 of tax is paid because no profit is made. The Malaysian subsidiary resells the item for $2000 to a US subsidiary. $150 tax is paid. The US subsidiary sells the item at cost for $2000. No profit is earned therefor no tax is paid. In actual fact the company makes $1850 profit, but the profit is hidden.
The manipulation of the transfer price also reduces customs duties and important tariffs.
Hope that helped, i just got it straight out of my text book