Amount B

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On February 19, 2024, the OECD Inclusive Framework on BEPS published its long-awaited final report on Pillar One – Amount B.[i]  The report details guidance on the “simplified and streamlined approach” (formerly known as Amount B) for applying the arm’s length principle to certain “baseline marketing and distribution activities.”  While offering some potential benefits in terms of reducing the need for comparables analyses and avoiding some disputes about comparables selection and adjustments, it is nevertheless narrow in scope, complex in application, and will likely give rise to inconsistencies in implementation throughout the world and more controversy. Continue Reading Amount B: Some Benefits, More Burdens

Column Blue Sky

Amount B aims to standardize the remuneration of related party distributors that perform baseline marketing and distribution activities in a manner that is aligned with the arm’s length principle. Its purpose is two-fold: First, Amount B is intended to simplify the administration of transfer pricing rules for tax administrations and reduce compliance costs for taxpayers. Second, Amount B is intended to enhance tax certainty and reduce controversy between tax administrations and taxpayers.

Pillar One assumes that distribution and marketing activities would be identified as in-scope based on a narrow scope of activities, set by reference to a defined “positive list” and “negative list” of activities that should and should not be performed to be considered in scope. Quantitative indicators would then be applied to further support and validate the identification of in-scope distributors. It is anticipated that amount B could be based on return on sales, with potentially differentiated fixed returns to account for the different geographic locations and/or industries of the in-scope distributors. Given the narrow scope of Amount B, there is currently no provision for Amount B to increase with the functional intensity of the activities of in-scope distributors. Amount B would not supersede advance pricing agreements or mutual agreement proceeding settlements agreed before the implementation of Amount B.

Under one proposal, the implementation of Amount B would operate under a rebuttable presumption, namely, that an entity that acts as a buy/sell distributor and performs the defined baseline marketing and distribution activities qualifying for the Amount B return would render it in scope, but that it will be possible to rebut the application of Amount B by providing evidence that another transfer pricing method would be the most appropriate to use under the arm’s length principle. While one group of OECD members prefers a narrow approach, another group prefers a broader approach that would also provide standardized remuneration for commissionaires or sales agents, or for distribution entities whose profile differs from the baseline marketing and distribution activities discussed below.Continue Reading OECD’s Pillar One Blueprint: Amount B