U.S. International Tax

On July 6, 2016, TEI submitted comments to the Internal Revenue Service regarding its proposed regulations for 26 U.S.C. § 385, which would give the IRS broad authority to recharacterize related-party debt to equity. We submitted these comments pursuant to the REG-108060-15 notice of proposed rulemaking. The comments discuss the negative macroeconomic effects the proposed regulations could have, the technical tax complexities they would create for corporate taxpayers, and suggested changes Treasury and IRS should make to the proposed regulations before finalizing them.

On March 21, 2016, TEI submitted comments to the IRS regarding proposed regulations (REG-109822-15) that would require certain U.S. headquartered multinational enterprises to report financial and tax information to the IRS on a country-by-country basis. The Institute's comments focused on the need for the final regulations to be consistent with the final report on Action 13 of the OECD's base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) project to minimize the administrative burden on businesses and permit flexibility in information reporting.

On March 10, 2014, TEI submitted comments to the IRS regarding Notice 2013-78, which proposes substantial revisions to Revenue Procedure 2006-54 for requesting assistance from the U.S. competent authority under U.S. tax treaties. TEI’s comments focused on, among other things, the ability of the U.S. competent authority to expand the scope of mutual agreement procedure requests, the interaction between the U.S. competent authority and IRS exam and appeals, and the impact of the proposed revenue procedure on the compulsory payment rule for claiming a foreign tax credit.

On March 10, 2014, TEI submitted comments to the IRS regarding Notice 2013-79, which proposes substantial revisions to Revenue Procedure 2006-9 for requesting advanced pricing agreements (APA) from the IRS. TEI’s comments focused on, among other things, the volume of information required to be submitted to the IRS under the proposed procedure, the pre-filing process, and Institute concerns with the authority of the IRS’s advanced pricing and mutual agreement program to expand the scope of an APA request.