Responding to the potential disruption created by COVID-19 for transfer pricing arrangements, the Advance Pricing & Mutual Agreement (“APMA”) Program on May 11, 2020, issued informal guidance related to the pandemic. The guidance makes clear that APMA will consider the impact of COVID-19 on both pending requests and completed agreements. It also reveals that APMA is already discussing COVID-19 issues with treaty partners.
Continue Reading COVID-19 and APAs: APMA Signals Flexible Case-by-Case Approach to Address Special 2020 Transfer Pricing Challenges in APAs
Thomas Kittle-Kamp
Tom Kittle-Kamp is co-leader of Mayer Brown’s Tax Controversy and Transfer Pricing practice. Since joining the firm in 1990, Tom has represented clients in every phase of tax controversy and litigation—from IRS examinations and administrative appeals, through the litigation, trial and appellate review of highly complex tax controversies running the range of international and domestic tax issues. Tom has particular expertise in the litigation and administrative resolution of large-dollar transfer-pricing matters. As an adjunct to his controversy practice, Tom also advises clients with respect to the planning of related-party transactions. He is co-author of the treatise Federal Income Taxation of Intellectual Properties and Intangible Assets (Thomson Reuters WG&L Tax Series 1997), which is updated twice a year.
Tom has been repeatedly recognized by Chambers USA, Legal 500 and the International Tax Review Tax Controversy Leaders guide. Chambers USA has described Tom as "extremely confident and persuasive in the courtroom and a pleasure to work with." Chambers USA further describes Tom as "extremely smart and well prepared," "very meticulous in his preparation" and a “very thoughtful practitioner who works well with clients.” Legal 500 has described Tom as "a very rare combination—a subtle courtroom advocate and a real tax expert," as well as “clever, very likeable, unassuming but very impressive in court.”
“Mutual Dependence”: Authority for Force Majeure in Transfer Pricing
COVID-19 has made force majeure a hot topic in transfer pricing. The idea is that the pandemic was an unexpected development of such power, like a natural disaster, that transfer pricing agreements can be changed to reflect the changed economics of a changed world.
But is there any case authority to support this approach? In fact there is, from one of the largest US transfer pricing cases of the 1990s.Continue Reading “Mutual Dependence”: Authority for Force Majeure in Transfer Pricing