During the FY 2010, A OY had made a group contribution to another domestic group company. When the 2010 tax assessment was carried out, A OY’s profit from business activities after deducting the group contribution was determined to be EUR 0. The French company B was part of the same group as A OY. For B, a transfer pricing adjustment had subsequently been made whereby an addition of EUR 656,339 was made to B’s taxable income based on payments to A OY. In the arbitration procedure between the French and Finnish authorities under the Arbitration Convention, the said transfer pricing adjustment was considered to be compatible with the arm’s length principle. The Tax Administration implemented the final result of the arbitration procedure by means of a consequential amendment to A OY’s taxation for 2010. An amount of EUR 656,339 was deducted from the company’s income ... Continue to full case

Eaton is an Ohio corporation with a global presence. It manufactures a wide range of electrical and industrial products. During the relevant period—2005 and 2006—Eaton had its foreign subsidiaries in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic manufacture certain products which Eaton then sold to its other affiliates and third-party customers. In 2002, Eaton applied for an APA related to these transactions. In 2004 the IRS and Eaton entered into the first APA which covered tax years 2001 through 2005. And in 2006 a second APA was entered which covered tax years 2006 through 2010. A few years after entering in to the APAs, Eaton reviewed its records and caught some inadvertent calculation errors. After letting the IRS know, Eaton corrected the mistakes. But the IRS thought that Eaton’s mistakes were serious enough to warrant its unilateral cancellation of the APAs for tax years 2005 and 2006 ... Continue to full case

R. Sp. z o.o. had requested a binding ruling/interpretation regarding tax deduction for the price paid to a related entity under restructuring. The request was denied by the tax authorities, as the question – according to the authorities – could only be answered under an Advance Pricing Agreement. R. Sp. z.o.o brought the issue before the Administrative Court, where a decision in favour of R. Sp. z.o.o. was issued. An appeal was then filed by the tax authorities. Judgement of the Supreme Administrative Court The Court dismissed the appeal of the tax authorities. The tax authorities could not refuse to issue a binding ruling/interpretation on whether or not a price paid to a related party under restructuring was tax deductible. According to the Court such a question could not only be dispelled by the issuance of an Advance Pricing Agreement. Click here for English Translation ... Continue to full case

On 23 September 2020, the Federal Administrative Court in Mexico issued a not yet published decision in a dispute between the Mexican tax authorities (SAT) and Canadian mining group First Majestic Silver Corp’s Mexican subsidiary, Primero Empresa Minera. The court case was filed back in 2015 by the tax authorities, to cancel an Advance Pricing Agreement (APA) issued to Primero Empresa Minera back in 2012. According to the APA, a methodology had been determined allowing the Mexican mining company to sell silver at 4.04 dollars per ounce to a group company based in Barbados (Silver Trading Barbados Ltd) via Luxembourg, when the average market price of silver was above 30 dollars. The APA was applied by Primero Empresa Minera for FY 2010 – 2014. The Federal Court decided in favor of the tax authorities that the APA was invalid and therefore nullified. After receiving the ... Continue to full case

Eaton Corporation is a global manufacturer of electrical and industrial products headquartered in the US.  This case concerning the computation of penalties is related to a previous 2017 dispute concerning the cancellation of two advance pricing agreements (APAs) establishing a transfer pricing methodology (TPM) for covered transactions between Eaton Corp and its subsidiaries. In 2011 IRS determined that Eaton had not complied with the applicable terms of the governing APA revenue procedures and canceled APA I and APA II, effective January 1, 2005 and 2006, respectively. The US Tax Court found that the cancellation of the APAs was an abuse of discretion (US vs Eaton TC opinion from July 2017), and the APAs remained in effect. Irespective of the ruling related to the cancellation of the APAs, the IRS determined that a section 482 adjustment were still necessary to reflect an arm’s-length result for Eaton’s intercompany transactions, ... Continue to full case

A request for mutual agreement and arbitration procedure between Spain and Germany was denied due to highly punishable violation of tax regulations committed by the taxpayer. The mutual agreement procedure according to the EU Arbitration Convention is of a mandatory nature and therefore leads to the elimination of double taxation if the requirements are met. However, if it is determined through legal or administrative proceedings that one of the companies involved has committed a highly punishable violation of tax regulations that result in a profit adjustment, then there is no obligation to carry out the mutual agreement and arbitration proceedings. Rather, the competent authority then has to decide on the implementation of the procedure at its due discretion. When assessing whether there has been a serious punishable violation, the person responsible for the company must be taken into account. But whether this person was actually ... Continue to full case

R. Sp. z o.o. had requested a binding ruling/interpretation regarding tax deduction for the price paid to a related entity under restructuring. The request was denied by the tax authorities, as the question – according to the authorities – could only be answered under an Advance Pricing Agreement. R. Sp. z.o.o brought the issue before the Administrative Court Judgement of the Administrative Court The Court decided in favour of R. Sp. z.o.o. According to the Court, the tax authorities could not refuse to issue a binding ruling/interpretation on whether or not a price paid to a related party under restructuring was tax deductible. Click here for English Translation Click here for other translation ... Continue to full case

The IRS decided to cancel two advance pricing agreements (APAs) with Eaton Corporation. The US Tax Court ruled that this decision was an abuse of discretion ... Continue to full case

The issue before the court was whether the Canadian revenue service had the ability to issue the second reassessments given the Canadian and US competent authorities subsequently agreed on a MAP settlement. The Tax Court found that a settlement agreed to via the competent authority precluded a subsequent tax-reassessment that attempted to further increase the taxpayer’s income ... Continue to full case

The Supreme Tax Court has held that the costs incurred by a taxpayer in connection with a tax treaty mutual agreement proceeding are not costs of earning the relevant income, but has left open a possible deduction as “unusual expenses”. A US resident realised a gain on the sale of a share in a GmbH. The German tax office sought to tax the gain, but the taxpayer objected on the grounds that it was taxable in the US under the double tax treaty. This tax office did not accept this objection, so a mutual agreement proceeding was initiated in an effort to clear the issue. Ultimately, the two competent authorities agreed to split the taxing right in the ratio 60:40 in favour of Germany. However, the taxpayer had incurred various consultancy and legal costs in the course of the process and these should, he claimed, be ... Continue to full case