Category: Intangibles – Goodwill Know-how Patents

Altera has asked the US Supreme Court for a judicial review of the Decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit over the validity of Internal Revenue Service regulations  that requires related companies to share the cost of stock-based employee compensation when shifting their intangible assets abroad applying US Cost Sharing regulations. In the decision a divided panel in the Court of Appeal upheld the regulation as “permissible” and therefore entitled to deference under Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984). In the Petition Altera presents three questions: 1. Whether the Treasury Department’s regulation is arbitrary and capricious and thus invalid under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 551 et seq. 2. Whether, under SEC v. Chenery Corp., 332 U.S. 194 (1947), the regulation may be upheld on a rationale the agency never advanced during rulemaking ... Continue to full case

The question in this case was whether royalty payments from a loss making Danish subsidiary Adecco A/S (H1 A/S in the decision) to its Swiss parent company Adecco SA (G1 SA in the decision – an international provider of temporary and permanent employment services active throughout the entire range of sectors in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and Asia – for use of trademarks and trade names, knowhow, international network intangibles, and business concept were deductible expenses for tax purposes or not. In  2013, the Danish tax authorities (SKAT) had amended Adecco A/S’s taxable income for the years 2006-2009 by a total of DKK 82 million. “Section 2 of the Tax Assessment Act. Paragraph 1 states that, when calculating the taxable income, group affiliates must apply prices and terms for commercial or economic transactions in accordance with what could have been agreed if the transactions ... Continue to full case

In 2012 Broadcom Corporation acquired all the shares of Broadlight Inc, another US corporation which owned a subsidiary in Israel, for around $200 million. Three months later, the subsidiary in Israel sold its IP to a group company for $59.5m and then an agreement was entered according to which the subsidiary would supply R&D, marketing and support services to the other group companies for a cost plus fee. Based on these facts the Israeli tax Authorities issued an assessment equivalent to $168.5m. The tax authorities found that the full value of the company in Israel had been transferred. The tax assessment was brought to court where Broadcom claimed that the tax authorities had re-characterised the transaction and that the onus of proof was on the tax authorities to justify the value of $168.5m. First the District Court held that all the values in the Israeli ... Continue to full case

In the course of restructuring its European businesses in a way that would shift a substantial amount of income from U.S.-based entities to the European subsidiaries, appellee Amazon.com, Inc. entered into a cost sharing arrangement in which a holding company for the European subsidiaries made a “buy-in” payment for Amazon’s assets that met the regulatory definition of an “intangible.” See 26 U.S.C. § 482. Tax regulations required that the buy-in payment reflect the fair market value of Amazon’s pre-existing intangibles. After the Commissioner of Internal Revenue concluded that the buy-in payment had not been determined at arm’s length in accordance with the transfer pricing regulations, the Internal Revenue Service performed its own calculation, and Amazon filed a petition in the Tax Court challenging that valuation. At issue is the correct method for valuing the preexisting intangibles under the then-applicable transfer pricing regulations. The Commissioner sought ... Continue to full case

The question at issue was whether a tax adviser at Crop BV had acted in accordance with the requirements of a reasonably competent and reasonably acting adviser when advising on the so-called royalty routing and its implementation and when giving advice on trading. Click here for translation NL royalty routing1 ... Continue to full case

In July 2013 the Irish pharma company Elan was acquired by the US based Perrigo group for $8.6 billion (£5.6 billion). Ireland’s corporation tax rate was one of the main attractions for Perrigo and the deal was said to give Perrigo substantial tax savings due to a corporate tax inversion. The Irish 12.5 % corporate tax rate compared US rate of 30 % was further augmented by the trading losses built up over a number of years by Elan in its business as a drug development group. That meant that even with a $3.25 billion transaction like Elan’s sale of the rights to the multiple sclerosis drug Tysabri the company would still not have to pay any tax. The low-tax scenario envisioned by Perrigo did not last for long. First Perrigo was issued a $1.9 billion tax bill (excluding interest and penalties) by the Irish tax ... Continue to full case

Intangibles had been transferred from a Danish subsidiary to a US parent under a written agreement. According to the agreement the Danish subsidiary – which had developed and used it’s own intangibles – would now have to pay royalties for the use of trademarks, know-how and patents owned by the US parent. The tax authorities had issued an assesment on the grounds that the majority of the Danish company’s intangibles had been transferred to the US parent. In the assesment the value of the intangibles had been calculated based on the price paid when the US group acquired the shares in the Danish company. H Group argued that the transferred intangibles no longer carried any value and that the Danish company now used intangibles owned by the US group. The Tax Tribunal found that tax authorities had been entitled to make an assessment as the transaction ... Continue to full case

In January 2013 the Swiss company Normet International Ltd acquired all the shares in the Norwegian company Dynamic Rock Support AS (now Normet Norway AS) for a price of NOK 78 million. In February 2013 all intangibles in Dynamic Rock Support AS was transfered to Normet International Ltd for a total sum of NOK 3.666.140. The Norwegian tax authorities issued an assessment where the arm’s length value of the intangibles was set at NOK 58.2 million. The Court of Appeal upheld the tax assessment issued by the tax authorities and rejected the appeal. Click here for translation Norway vs Normet 190319 ... Continue to full case

The question in the case was whether Cytec Norway KS (now Allnex Norway A/S) had paid an arm’s length price for an intra-group transfer of intangible assets in 2010. Cytec Norway KS had set the price for the accquired intangibles at NOK 210 million and calculated tax depreciations on that basis. The Norwegian tax authorities found that no intangibles had actually been transferred. The tax Appeals Committee determined that intangibles had been transferred but only at a total value of NOK 45 million. The Court of appeal upheld the dicision of the Tax Appeals Committee, where the price for tax purposes was estimated at NOK 44.9 million. Click here for translation Norway vs Cytec 19 March 2019, Borgarting Lagmannsrett Case No 2017-90184 ... Continue to full case

US Gaming Giant, Activision Blizzard Inc. – known for games such as World of Warcraft and Diablo – is and has been involved in several major transfer pricing disputes – with the US, French, UK, and Swedish tax authorities. In a 10Q filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission from November 2018 the following information was provided by the company on pending tax cases. “Activision Blizzard’s 2009 through 2016 tax years remain open to examination by certain major taxing jurisdictions to which we are subject. During February 2018, the Company was notified by the IRS that its tax returns for 2012 through 2016 tax years will be subject to examination. In September 2018, the IRS concluded its examination of our 2009 through 2011 tax years. The Company also has several state and non-U.S. audits pending, including the French audit discussed below. In addition, as ... Continue to full case

In a case on hidden distribution of profits, the Luxembourg tax authorities stated the following on the issue of valuation methods for intangible assets (a patent): “…the evaluation of an intellectual property right is a rather complex subject; that evaluation reports from “independent” experts in this field are often rather subjective; whereas, therefore, reference should be made to a neutral and recognized body for the evaluation of patents, in this case WIPO, which proposes three different methods of valuation, including (a) the cost method, (b) the revenue method, as well as (c) the market method; that the first method of evaluation is to be dismissed from the outset in view of the absence of research and development expenses reported by the Claimant; that the second method is based on the future revenues of the patent invention; therefore, there must be a large enough amount of data to predict future revenues over ... Continue to full case

A Japanese company had entered into a series of controlled transactions with foreing group companies granting services and licences to use intangibles – know-how related to manufacturing and sales, training, and provided support by sending over technical experts. The company had used a CUP method to price these transactions based on select “internal comparables”. Tax authorities disagreed with the company and found that the residual profit split method should be applied to price the transactions. The court found the transactions should be aggregated and that the price should be determined for the full packaged deal – not separately for each transaction. The foreign related-party transactions were compared – as a whole – to the comparable transactions selected by the company and the court found that the product lines, how to use them and frequency of dispatching employees to support the foreing group company were not ... Continue to full case

Hewlett-Packard pays NIS 1.6 billion ($450 million) in tax on its 2006 acquisition of the intellectual property of Israel company Mercury Interactive, in addition to the NIS 1 billion already paid to the Israel Tax Authority. The acquisition at issue took place in two stages. First the shares in Mercury Interactive were acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $4.5 billion in 2006. Then in 2009 Mercury Interactive’s intellectual property was transferred to Hewlett-Packard for a substantially lower price of $963 million. The Tax Authority held that the sales of the intellectual property should be taxed at the full value of $4.5 billion The case was settled in international arbitration, which ended with an additional tax payment of NIS 1.6 billion by Hewlett-Packard ... Continue to full case

The French Court considers that in the event of a transfer of shares, the goodwill recognized at the acquisition of the shares shall no longer be included in the balance sheet of the parent company ... Continue to full case

In November 2006 Microsoft Corp. purchased 100% of the shares of Gteko Ltd. (IT Support technology), for USD 90 million. The purchase was made with the intention of integrating Gteko’s technology into Microsoft’s own products. Following this purchase of Gteko Ltd., the employees were transferred to the local Microsoft subsidiary and a few months later another agreement was entered transferring Gteko’s intellectual property/intangibles to Microsoft. This transfer was priced at USD 26 million based on the purchase price allocation (PPA). The tax authorities of Israel found that the price of 26 mio USD used in the transaction was not at arm’s length. It was further argued, that the transaction was not only a transfer of some intangibles but rather a transfer of all assets owned by Gteko as a going concern to Microsoft Corp. The arm’s length price for the transfer was set at USD 80 million. The District Court agreed with the assessment and ... Continue to full case

Amazon is an online retailer that sells products through Amazon.com and related websites. Amazon also sells third-party products for which it receives a commissions. In a series of transactions  in 2005 and 2006, Amazon US transferred intangibles to Amazon Europe, a newly established European HQ placed in Luxembourg. A Cost Sharing Arrangement (“CSA”), whereby Amazon US and Amazon Europe agreed to share costs of further research, development, and marketing in proportion to the benefits A License Agreement, whereby Amazon US granted Amazon Europe the right to Amazon US’s Technology IP An Assignment Agreement, whereby Amazon US granted Amazon Europe the right to Amazon US’s Marketing IP and Customer Lists. For these transfers Amazon Europe was required to make an upfront buy-in payment and annual payments according to the cost sharing arrangement for ongoing developments of the intangibles. In the valuation, Amazon had considered the intangibles to have ... Continue to full case

The Danish Tax administration had made an estimated assessment due to a insufficient TP documentation. In the assessment goodwill amortizations were included when comparing the operating income of the company to that of independent parties in a database survey. The Tax Tribunal found that the tax administration was not entitled to make an estimated assessment under Article 3B (3) of the current Tax Control Act. 8 (now paragraph 9) and section 5 3, where the TP documentation provided a sufficient basis for assessing whether prices and terms were in accordance with the arm’s length principle. According to the Tax Tribunal goodwill amortizations should not be included when comparing the operating income of the company to the operating income of independent parties in a database survey. Hence the assessment was reduced to DKK 0. The case has been appealed to the Danish National Court by the tax authorities ... Continue to full case

The Accenture settlement with the Swiss tax authorities results from a significant discrepancy in the valuation of intangibles in a 2010 inter-company transfer from Switzerland to Ireland via Luxembourg that was disclosed in 2014 as a result of Lux Leaks. The Lux Leaks documents show that in the 48 hours it took to complete the inter-company transfer, the value of the intangibles had increased by almost 600 percent from $1.2 billion to $7 billion. In a document to the Luxembourg authorities detailing the tax treatment on the transaction, PwC confirmed the re-evaluation, describing the $7 billion as “fair market value”. Accenture was the first known user of the “CAIA-tax scheme” in a U.S. corporate tax inversion to Ireland. Accenture-2010-Tax-Ruling ... Continue to full case

The IRS argued that Medtronic Inc failed to accurately account for the value of trade secrets and other intangibles owned by Medtronic Inc and used by Medtronic’s Puerto Rico manufacturing subsidiary in 2005 and 2006 when determening the royalty payments from the subsidiary. In 2016 the United States Tax Court found in favor of Medtronic, sustaining the use of the CUT method to analyze royalty payments. The Court also found that adjustments to the CUT were required. These included additional adjustments not initially applied by Medtronic Inc for know-how, profit potential and scope of product. The decision from the United States Tax Court has been appealed by the IRS in 2017. US-Memo-2016-112-Medtronic-v.-Commissioner ... Continue to full case

The U.S. Tax Court held in favor of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, stating that neither Internal Revenue Code §482 nor the regulations thereunder require the Respondent to always determine the separate taxable income of each controlled taxpayer in a consolidated group contemporaneously with the making of the resulting adjustments. The Tax Court further held that §482 and the regulations thereunder allow the Respondent to aggregate one or more related transactions instead of making specific adjustments with respect to each type of transaction. US-vs.-Guidant-Corporation-and-Subsidiares-v.-Commissioner-of-Internal-Revenue ... Continue to full case