
Define business restructuring, including acquisitions and disposals, and align transfer pricing with centralization of functions, value chain analysis, and regional manufacturing and logistics hubs.
Analyze restructures that centralize intangibles in a holding company and license technology to manufacturers and distributors. Benchmark royalties and arm's length pricing among licenses, distributors, procurement hubs, and triangulation models.
Explore arm's length transfer pricing in restructures, detailing how to value moved assets, risks, and functions, assess input from entities, and allocate profit along the value chain.
Explore restructuring with a thorough value chain analysis to allocate transfer pricing by risks, functions, and assets, including embedded intangibles and contracts, at arm's length.
Explore how shifting management and control can change tax residency across jurisdictions, illustrated by a South Africa–Luxembourg case involving capital gains tax, double tax treaties, and anti-avoidance rules.
Examine two Canadian transfer pricing cases that reveal how licensing, royalties, and IP ownership structures interact with tax treaties, anti-avoidance rules, and control tests.
Examine the James Hardie Australian case, detailing a Netherlands holding company structure to route US profits, reduce withholding taxes, secure tax credits, and avoid double taxation under treaty rules.
Introduce permanent establishments under article 5 and explain fixed places of business such as offices, branches, and bookshops, including building sites and construction periods for profit attribution.
Examine Article 5 definitions of permanent establishment, including fixed place of business, auxiliary versus proprietary activities, and dependent agents, plus Action 7 changes and habitually playing the principal role.
Explore the permanent establishment test via the PE decision tree, assessing fixed place of business and dependent versus independent agents in a two-plant case with a local hub.
Explore how section 7 expands permanent establishment by merging office and warehouse activities, and examine commission, inventory management, advertising space, and undisclosed principals under the force of attraction.
Explore case studies on identifying permanent establishment types within a multinational group. Learn about fixed place, dependent agent, and digital presence concepts and their transfer pricing implications.
Explore transfer pricing basics with Article 7, defining permanent establishment and single entity approaches to attribute profits and navigate cross-jurisdiction taxation and credits.
Apply transfer pricing principles to attribute profits to a PE by analyzing key functions, risks, assets, and economic ownership, then allocate profits using standard methods at arm's length.
Identify and allocate profits to the PE by analyzing significant functions, risks, and economic ownership of assets across the enterprise, considering outsourcing, contracts, and the supply chain.
Explore transfer pricing through practical examples of a manufacturing and sales structure, examining pricing policy, inventory, warehousing, and marketing expenses across permanent establishment scenarios.
Explore compliance and dispute resolution in transfer pricing, including country-by-country reporting, audit engagement, and strategies to manage tax risk with revenue authorities.
Course Aims
The aim of this module is to ensure a student understands how certain of the more complex type of TP transactions are to be identified, treated, analysed and priced in terms of the OECD guidelines, specifically for business restructuring and permanent establishments.
The module aims to provide guidance to a student on what classifies as a business restructuring and how the arm’s length principle is to be applied in such circumstances.
For permanent establishments, the module aims to provide the student with guidance on the arm’s length principle. Articles 5 and 7 of the OECD Model Tax Convention, and the attribution of profits principles are to be explained in detail.
The module explains the documentation requirements per the OECD guidelines and specific points relating to the BEPS Action list. The concept of risk management is explained to the student. Key management implications relating to risk management is discussed with the student.
The concept of dispute resolution is explained to the student, specifically the procedures of MAP’s, APA’s and corresponding adjustments.
As in module 1, the student is also provided with guidance relating to Ethics within the documentation, risk management and dispute resolution themes.
On successful completion of this module, the student should be able to:
1. Identify and evaluate transfer pricing aspects of business restructurings.
2. Justify the applicability of the arm’s length principle for business restructuring transactions.
3. Interpret tax treaty definitions of what constitutes a permanent establishment as set out in the OECD Model Tax Convention.
4. Outline the risk management principles per the documentation requirements of the OECD guidelines.
5. Present the dispute resolution mechanisms used to resolve disputes within enterprises (such as the Mutual Agreement Procedure and the Advance Transfer Pricing Agreement).
Consider the ethical and moral issues raised by present-day transfer pricing practices.