The Tax Administration is a distinct and autonomous administrative organization within the Ministry of Finances whose basic duty is to implement and monitor tax regulations and regulations concerning the payment of obligatory contributions.

In the course of its long-term co-operation with the Tax Administration, Alkemist has so far translated rather diverse documents: from legislation through specialized education modules to memoranda from various tax institutions from all over the world.

The project that was particularly challenging for us was the translation of the document entitled OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines.

The document, which was very technical, was available only in the .pdf format and it spanned more than 850 standard pages. In order to ensure a translation of the highest possible quality, what we did first in approaching the project was to study the technical terminology included in the document, which led us to establish that it pertained to several fields: finance, tax, law and administration. Naturally, we asked the client for reference documents, so, in addition to the original, we received the translation of the previous version of the document, also in the .pdf format.

Since we care deeply about using state-of-the-art technologies in the field of translation, the first task we had to deal with was the conversion of documents into a format that could be imported into the specialized translation software we use in our daily operations (MemoQ, Trados, Memsource). We converted the documents into a Word format and then we sent them to a translation memories expert. It was only when the translation memories were ready that we were able to start the translation, sure of the fact that we had a sound terminological basis and that the translation would be consistent with the previous version.

The client received the translation in a series of partial deliveries and we asked them for feedback regarding the technical terminology after each individual delivery. We forwarded that feedback to the translator, who then implemented it into the rest of the translation and, finally, after three months’ worth of work, we delivered a translation that was fully aligned with the current terminology and the language used in the field.

What was crucial in this project was the communication with the client who recognized the importance of co-operation in matters of terminology, for which they are the greatest experts.