On 20 May, 2021 the first Webinar of IFA’s online series “A conversation on International Tax Practice” was held. Chaired by Robert Danon (Chair IFA Permanent Scientific Committee), global experts shared their perspectives on India’s software royalty case and on landmark transfer pricing rulings delivered by Courts in various jurisdictions thereby suggesting alignment and…

Introduction On November 23, 2020 Italian Tax Authorities (“ITA”) issued the Provision no. 360494/2020 (“Provision”) by which it introduced new measures[1] as for the content and validity of the transfer pricing documentation (“TPD”) – to be prepared by Italian resident enterprises and Italian permanent establishments of foreign entities – in order to benefit from the…

1. Background During the 21st Session of the UN Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters, the relevant members decided to include a new draft – Art. 12B on Automated Digital Services (ADS) as well as its Commentary – in the UN Model.[1] Concerning the agenda of the proposal, the Committee of Experts…

Summary There might be a leak in the OECD’s global minimum tax proposals (GLOBE; Pillar Two). To address the remaining challenges of base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) by large multinational enterprises the OECD envisages a global minimum level of company taxation and top-up taxation by countries up to that level where other countries do…

Claudio Cipollini (Heidelberg University, Germany) / February 24, 2021 The identification of new instruments to improve the efficiency of transfer pricing (TP) control is a priority on the international tax law agenda. The search for effective methods of control and feasible solutions for minimizing the associated costs assume a fundamental relevance for the sustainability of…

On 1 July 2019, the Dutch tax ruling practice was revised to align it with EU and international standards and recommendations as well as to increase its openness and transparency. In this respect, the Dutch tax authorities (DTA) now publish anonymized summaries of advance pricing agreements and advance pricing agreement (APA) requests. This month, Intertax…

Purpose of the blog: To analyze the recent ruling of the US tax court (‘the Court’) in the case of The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC). Ruling: The US Tax Court, for the years 2007-09, ruled TCCC was under-compensated by its associated enterprises (AEs) for the use of intellectual property, and confirmed an addition of approximately USD…

1. Carve-out of financial services from the scope of Amount A According to the Report on the Pillar One Blueprint,[1] the proposed scope of Amount A is designed to capture multinational groups that are presumed to participate in a sustained and significant manner in the economic life of a market jurisdiction. To this end, the…

When the UK introduced its diverted profits tax, I was telephoned by a lawyer at the US Treasury. He wanted to know whether the “just and reasonable” apportionment of profits, in certain circumstances where DPT applied, was a new development? What did it mean? I was reminded of that discussion this week as a result…

This article is the last of a series of three posts dealing with non-chargeable intra group services: Shareholder Activities, Duplicate Activities and Incidental Benefits. This post will specifically focus on the delineation of incidental benefits. To get the bigger picture, transfer pricing rules and the standard on which it relies, the arm’s length principle, considers…

Introduction Except for the unprecedented health crisis, the COVID-19 spread has generated the biggest economic and financial shock of the century across markets and cross-borders.[1] The preventive and reactive mechanisms developed by national governments and international and supranational organizations to respond to the crisis give in turn rise to a plethora of tax questions. It…

Duplicate activities? Duplicate services are defined in the 2017 Transfer Pricing Guidelines (TPG) of the OECD as “activities undertaken by one group member that merely duplicate a service that another group member is performing for itself, or that is being performed for such other group member by a third party.” [1] Those activities are expressively…

Council Directive (EU) 2018/822 (generally known as DAC 6) expressly provides for reporting obligations concerning cross-border arrangements that present an indication of a potential risk of tax avoidance. The Annex to the Directive lists the hallmarks triggering reporting obligations, which include the category of specific hallmarks concerning transfer pricing (Category E). The first of these…

In my last blog, I looked at the immediate impact of Covid 19 Lockdowns on key elements of double tax treaties – residence, permanent establishment and employment income. Many tax administrations have published guidance on their approach to these issues. Indeed, almost immediately after the OECD also published helpful comment on them too. The general…