Tax Policy, Transfer Pricing, United States

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In a double take two-to-one decision because of a withdrawn decision due to the death of a judge, a Ninth Circuit panel in Altera reversed a unanimous en banc decision of the Tax Court that the qualified cost sharing arrangements (QCSA) regulations[1] were invalid under the Administrative Procedure Act.[2]  The renown Professor Calvin Johnson (Texas) and I shared comments on this case. Professor Johnson’s…

BEPS, Tax Avoidance, Tax Treaties, Uncategorized

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In regards to the title of this post, the Ways & Means version of international tax reform moves toward a territorial regime of granting an exemption for foreign profits but then derogates from the exemption with a series of BEPS measures.[1] by William Byrnes, Texas A&M University Law On Thursday, November 2, 2017, the Republicans…

BEPS, MAPs and APAs, Transfer Pricing

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IRS Operational Update: Reorganization and Risk-Based Approach The IRS new Large Business and International (LB&I) risk approach has been implemented in the form of “campaigns”, focusing on weighing the size of the compliance risk, how often the risk is occurring, where it is occurring and if the risk is a result of a promoted scheme….

FATCA, OECD

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FATCA: GIINs and LEIs Musings of Professor William Byrnes with the tremendous brain power of Haydon Perryman Firstly, a loud shout out to Haydon Perryman who crunches the IRS GIIN list into workable data.  His research is at the forefront of FATCA and CRS intelligence and the only available for analysis of FATCA.  Now unto some numbers. As…

FATCA, Tax Avoidance, Tax Fraud, Uncategorized, Withholding Taxes

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I was recently asked to analyze the often quoted figure of $150 billion lost by the U.S. Treasury to foreign non-tax compliance by U.S. taxpayers.  My transcribed remarks are below.  Also, see William Byrnes’ Guide to FATCA & CRS Compliance (Matthew Bender 5th ed., 2017) at pp. 30, 33-34, 50, 59, 109-112, and 119-122. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2926119 How…

BEPS, Transfer Pricing

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In a 207 page opinion the Tax Court ruled March 23, 2017 that the IRS’s adjustment with respect to Amazon.Inc’s transfer pricing buy-in payment for an intragroup cost sharing agreement (CSA) is arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable [1].  Another major blow for the IRS in a string of such losses starting with VERITAS [2] (2009), the 2010 Xilinx [3] about-face…

BEPS, Intangibles, OECD, Tax Planning, Transfer Pricing

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Lower energy cost is a major factor for U.S. manufacturers … to be able to offer on par production costs to China, and 10 percent to 20 percent lower costs than European manufacture. I’ve been remiss in my blogging since the surprise victory of the presidential election.  It is not because I think the apocalypse…

State Aid, Transfer Pricing

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To refresh memories, several months ago I posted part 1 of this study on Kluwer’s International Tax Blog: Application of TNMM to Starbucks Roasting Operation: Seeking Comparables Through Understanding the Market  Part 1 briefly describes my advocated transfer pricing approach drawn from my transfer pricing law treatise and my corresponding research based upon it.  My…

FATCA, OECD, State Aid

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the world is full of black and grey hat tax administrations. The U.S. has the opportunity to leverage its power as the world’s safe (tax) haven for bi-lateral information exchange as a carrot – stick policy tool to clean them up, and move them to become white hat, best practices tax administrations.

BEPS, MAPs and APAs, OECD, State Aid, Tax Avoidance, Tax Planning, Transfer Pricing, Uncategorized

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On June 27, 2016 the EU Commission published the long awaited Starbucks State Aid decision (see here).  The EU Commission’s decision challenges the outcome of the Advanced Pricing Agreement (APA) between the Netherlands Tax Authority (Tax Authority) and Starbucks Manufacturing BV (SMBV), a wholly owned and controlled coffee roasting operation. Below is the Part I…

FATCA

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William Byrnes with Haydon Perryman This month we turn our attention to the recently revised 2016 W-8BEN-E form which has 30 parts over eight pages that can be catalogued into four sections. The IRS released its previous substantial update of the W-8BEN-E in February 2014 and in April 2016 its most recent revisionary updated form with accompanying…

BEPS, MAPs and APAs, OECD, Permanent Establishments, Tax Planning, Transfer Pricing

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In highly dramatic fashion the French tax authorities and IT specialists raided Google’s headquarters and McDonalds. I don’t own Google stock. I’m not in favor of Google’s near monopoly on search (though it has accomplished this by offering a really great product and (free) work tools that make my life much easier).  I don’t eat…

FATCA, OECD

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This month I will discuss the important topic for the anti-money laundering compliance officer, wherein the AML systems overlap with the requirement for tax compliance, and that tax compliance requirement requires tax self certification from each customer of a financial institution. I will provide insight about five topics: The Panama Papers FATCA and its related…

BEPS, Transfer Pricing

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Treasury recently released its 2015 Transfer Pricing Advance Pricing Agreements Report to Congress, the seventeenth report since the initial 1999 report.  Each year, the Treasury APA Report describes the annual experience, structure, and activities of the APMA Program.  Treasury also formally released the much discussed new audit/examination protocols that will become effective 1 May 2016. …