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 ...

Coca Cola, a U.S. corporation, was the legal owner of the intellectual property (IP) necessary to manufacture, distribute, and sell some of the best-known beverage brands in the world. This IP included trade- marks, product names, logos, patents, secret formulas, and proprietary manufacturing processes. Coca Cola licensed foreign manufacturing affiliates, called “supply points,” to use this IP to produce concentrate that they sold to unrelated bottlers, who produced finished beverages for sale  to distributors and retailers throughout the world. Coca Cola’s contracts with its supply points gave them limited rights to use the IP in performing their manufacturing and distribution functions but gave the supply points no ownership interest in that IP. During 2007-2009 the supply points compensated Coca Cola for use of its IP under a formulary apportionment method to which Coca Cola and IRS had agreed in 1996 when settling Coca Cola’s tax liabilities for 1987-1995. Under that method the supply points were permitted to satisfy their royalty obligations by paying actual royalties or by remitting dividends. During 2007-2009 the supply points remitted to Coca Cola dividends of about $1.8 billion in satisfaction of their royalty obligations. The 1996 agreement did not address the transfer pricing methodology to be used for years after 1995. Upon examination of Coca Cola’s 2007-2009 returns IRS determined that Coca Cola’s methodology did not reflect arm’s-length norms because it over-compensated the supply points and undercompensated Coca Cola for the use of its IP. IRS reallocated income between Coca Cola and the supply points employing a comparable profits method (CPM) that used Coca Cola’s unrelated bottlers as comparable parties. These adjustments increased Coca Cola’s aggregate taxable income for 2007- 2009 by more than $9 billion. The US Tax Court ruled on November 18 that Coca-Cola’s US-based income should be increased by about $9 billion in a dispute over the appropriate royalties owned by its foreign-based licensees for the years from 2007 to 2009. The court reduced the IRS’s adjustment by $1.8 billion because the taxpayer made a valid and timely choice to use an offset treatment when it came to dividends paid by foreign manufacturing affiliates to satisfy royalty obligations ...