In a November 2020 opinion the US Tax Court agreed with the IRS that Coca-Cola’s US-based income should be increased by $9 billion in a dispute over royalties from its foreign-based licensees. Coca-Cola filed a Motion to Reconsider June 2, 2021 – 196 days after the Tax Court had served its opinion. Judgement of the tax court The Tax Court denied the motion to reconsider. There is a 30-day deadline to move for reconsideration and the court concluded that Coca-Cola was without a valid excuse for the late filing and that the motion would have failed on the merits in any event. 2021_10_26-Order-re-Motion-for-Leave-Coca-Cola-762 ...

The case concerned a complex financing structure within the General Electric Group. The taxpayer, GE Financial Investments Ltd (GEFI Ltd), a UK resident company was the limited partner in a Delaware limited partnership, of which, GE Financial Investments Inc (GEFI Inc) a Delaware corporation was the general partner. GEFI Ltd filed UK company tax returns for FY 2003-2008 in which the company claimed a foreign tax credit for US federal income tax. In total, US federal income taxes amounted to $ 303 millions and exceeded the amount of tax due in the UK. The tax authorities opened an enquiry into each of GEFI’s company tax returns for the relevant period, and subsequently issued an assessment where the claims for foreign tax credits was denied in their entirety. Judgement of the Tax Tribunal The tribunal dismissed the appeal of GEFI Ltd and ruled that the UK company did not carry on business in the US. Hence GEFI Ltd was not entitled to a foreign tax credit. Excerpt “By contrast the construction of Article 4 advanced by HMRC requires both worldwide taxation and a connection or attachment to the contracting state concerned. In my judgment, this is the correct approach as it takes into account the common feature or similarity of domicile, residence, citizenship etc, in the context of the Convention, ie that they are all criteria providing, in addition to the imposition of a worldwide liability to tax, a “connection” or “attachment” of a person to the contracting state concerned. Such an interpretation is consistent with Widrig (see paragraphs 44 – 46, above) and Vogel (see paragraph 47, above) and Crown Forest which, as Ms McCarthy submits, when properly understood in context is authority for the proposition that full or worldwide taxation is a necessary feature of the connecting criterion but is not sufficient of itself. … Although her further submission, that, other than the imposition of a worldwide liability to US tax, share stapling has no US law consequences at federal or state level (eg it does not carry with it US filing or reporting obligations or make a stapled overseas company’s constitutional documents subject to or dependent on US law), was not supported by evidence, I agree that, given the differences that do exist for tax purposes (see paragraph 29, above) the connection or attachment is between the stapled entities rather than to the country concerned. 66. Therefore, in the absence of the necessary connection or attachment by GEFI to the US, and despite Mr Baker’s persuasive submissions to the contrary, I do not consider that GEFI was a resident of the US for the purposes of Article 4 of the Convention by reason of the share staple between it and GEFI Inc. As such it is necessary to consider Issue 2, the Permanent Establishment Issue. … However, Ms McCarthy confirmed that, should I conclude that the activities of the LP are sufficient to amount to the carrying on of a business, there is no separate dispute as to whether that business is carried on in Stamford, Connecticut, or some other location. 71. As such, it is therefore necessary to consider what is in effect the only issue between the parties under issue 2(a), namely whether, as it contends, GEFI by its participation in the LP carried on a business in the US or, as HMRC argue, it did not.” … I agree with Ms McCarthy who submits that there is nothing to suggest that personnel or agents acting on behalf of the LP made or conducted continuous and regular commercial activities in the US. All that appears to have happened was that monies were directed straight to GELCO without negotiating terms or the consideration at a director level as would have been expected from a company carrying on commercial activities on sound business principles. … Therefore, notwithstanding its objects, and having regard to the degree of activity as a whole, particularly the lack of participation in the strategic direction of the LP by the directors of GEFI Inc, I have come to the conclusion that GEFI was not carrying on a business in the US through its participation in the LP. … Having concluded for the reasons above that GEFI did not carry on business in the US it is not necessary to address Issue 2(b), ie whether, if GEFI had carried out business in the US, US tax was payable under US law and if so whether the UK is required under Article 24(4)(a) to give relief against this US tax. … Therefore, for the reasons above the appeal is dismissed.” ”G UKFTT 210 (TC) TC08160″] ...

A Luxembourg-based limited company (LU) held a 30% stake in an Austrian stock company operating an airport. LU employed no personnel and did not develop any activities. The parent company of LUP was likewise resident in Luxembourg. LUP had business premises in Luxembourg and employed three people. All of the shares in LUP were held by a company in the British Cayman Islands in trust for a non- resident Cayman Islands-based fund. In 2015, the Austrian Company distributed a dividend to LU. LU was not yet involved in the Austrian corporation “for an uninterrupted period of at least one year” thus withholding tax was withheld and deducted. A request for refunding of the withholding tax was denied by the tax office because the dividend was distributed to recipients in a third country and the tax authorities regarded the structure as abusive. LU then appealed the decision to the Federal Fiscal Court. The Court held that the appeal was unfounded, because the tax office rightly assumed that the structure was abusive within the meaning of Austrian tax rules. LU then filed an appeal to the Austrian Administrative High Court (VwGH). The High Court overruled the Federal Fiscal Court and found that LUP had actually developed activities. An economic reason for the set-up of a company structure- for example, the professional management of long-term investments in the EU by a management holding with several employees (the LUP as the Luxembourg parent company of the appellant) – exists even if the desired economic goal would have been achieved otherwise (i.e. with a holding company located outside the EU). According to the Court, an economic reason for a set-up exists if the economic objective, as put forward in this case, was better and safer to achieve. Thus, the structure was not abusive. Click here for English translation Click here for other translation Austrich vs Corp 27 March 2019 RO-2018-13-0004 ...

Santander Holding USA is a financial-services company that used a tax strategy called Structured Trust Advantaged Repackaged Securities (STARS) to generate more than $400 million in foreign tax credits. The scheme was developed and promoted to several U.S. banks by Barclays Bank PLC, a U.K. financial-services company, and the accounting firm KPMG, LLC. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) ultimately concluded that the STARS transaction was a sham, and that the economic-substance doctrine therefore prohibited petitioner from claiming the foreign tax credits. The STARS-scheme was designed to transform the foreign tax credit into economic profit, at the expense of the U.S. Treasury. STARS involved an arrangement whereby the U.S. taxpayer paid tax to the United Kingdom, claimed a foreign tax credit for that U.K. tax, and simultaneously recouped a substantial portion of its U.K. tax. Instead of the typical one-to-one correlation of credits claimed to taxes paid, the taxpayer thus received one dollar in U.S. tax credits for substantially less than one dollar in foreign taxes paid. The STARS shelter was complex, but in  general terms worked as follows: The U.S. taxpayer diverted income from U.S. assets (such as loans to U.S. borrowers) into and out of a wholly owned Delaware trust that had a nominal U.K. trustee. Circulation of the income through the trust was purely a paper transaction, and no income was put at risk or deployed in any productive activities. Because the trustee was a U.K. resident, however, circulation of the income through the trust caused the income to become subject to U.K. tax, even though the assets and income never left the United States or the U.S. taxpayer’s control. The taxpayer would pay the trust’s U.K. tax and claim corresponding foreign tax credits on its U.S. return. STARS, however, incorporated a mechanism that allowed the taxpayer to recoup a substantial portion of the U.K. tax, while retaining the full amount of the U.S. foreign tax credits. Barclays, the entity that marketed STARS, acquired at the outset a formal interest in the Delaware trust. Under U.K. law, that formal interest allowed Barclays to claim certain U.K. tax benefits, ultimately permitting Barclays to recover almost the full amount (in this case, 85%) of the taxes that the taxpayer had paid. As part of the STARS strategy, Barclays agreed to return a significant percentage of that amount to the U.S. taxpayer, while keeping the rest as its fee. As a result, the U.S. taxpayer would receive an effective refund (through Barclays) of approximately 50% of its U.K. taxes, while claiming a foreign tax credit on its U.S. tax return as if it had paid 100% of those taxes. That benefit was achieved without putting any money at economic risk and without engaging in any productive business activities. The STARS strategy had an unlimited capacity to generate additional foreign tax credits, bounded only by the amount of income that a taxpayer could cycle through the trust petitioner employed the transaction to generate more than $400 million in foreign tax credits during the 2003-2007 tax years. The question before the Supreme Court was whether the economic substance of a transaction for which a taxpayer claims foreign tax credits on its federal tax return depends in part on whether the transaction was profitable after all foreign taxes were paid. Like other provisions of the Internal Revenue Code, foreign tax credits are subject to the “economic substance” doctrine under that longstanding common-law principle, which was codified by Congress in 2010. According to the doctrine a transaction are not allowable if the transaction does not have economic substance or lacks a business purpose. The doctrine reflects the principle that Congress does not intend for sham transactions to produce tax benefits, even if the transactions would otherwise trigger tax benefits under the pertinent statutory and regulatory provisions. The Court denies the petition for a writ of certiorari Supreme Court US vs santander ...