Prior to 2018, widely-used tax plans of U.S.-based multinational groups were designed to achieve three basic goals in connection with European operations: (i) the reduction of European taxes as European profits were generated, (ii) the integration of European tax plans with U.S. tax concepts to prevent Subpart F from applying to intercompany transactions in Europe, and (iii) the reduction of withholding taxes and U.S. tax under Subpart F as profits were distributed through a chain of European companies and then to the global parent in the U.S.

Reduction of Taxes in Europe

The first goal – the reduction of European taxation on operating profits – often entailed the deconstruction of a business into various affiliated companies, which can be illustrated as follows:

  • Group equity for European operations was placed in a holding company that served as an entrepôt to Europe.
  • Tangible operating assets related to manufacturing or sales were owned by a second company or companies where the facilities or markets were located.
  • Financing was provided by a third company where rulings or legislation were favorable.
  • Intangible property was owned by a fourth company qualifying as an innovation box company.

If the roadmap was carefully followed, European taxes on operations could be driven down in ways that did not result in immediate U.S. taxation under Subpart F. A simplified version of the plan that was widely used by U.S.-based multinational groups involved the following steps:

  • Form an Irish controlled foreign corporation ("TOPCO") that is managed and controlled in Bermuda.
  • Have TOPCO enter into a qualified cost sharing agreement with its U.S. parent providing for the emigration of intangible property to TOPCO for exploitation outside the U.S. at an acceptable buy-in payment that could be paid over time.
  • Have TOPCO form a Dutch subsidiary ("DCO") to serve as a licensing company, and an Irish subsidiary ("OPCO") to carry on active business operations.
  • Make check-the-box elections for DCO and OPCO so that both are treated as branches of TOPCO.
  • Have TOPCO license the rights previously obtained under the qualified cost sharing agreement to DCO and have DCO enter a comparable license agreement with OPCO.

The use of check-the-box entities within Europe eliminated Subpart F income from being recognized in the U.S. A functionally comparable arrangement could be obtained for intercompany loans where such loans were required for capital investments. The qualified cost sharing arrangement eliminated the application of Code §367, which otherwise would mandate ongoing income inclusions for the U.S. parent as if it sold the intangible property pursuant to a deferred payment arrangement. Any intercompany dividends paid within the group headed by TOPCO were ignored for Subpart F purposes because of the check-the-box elections made by all of TOPCO's subsidiaries. At the same time, deferred taxes were not reported as current period expenses on financial statements prepared by the U.S. parent provided the underlying earnings were permanently invested abroad.

Meanwhile, earnings were funneled up to the European group equity holder and recycled for further expansion within the European group. Intragroup payments typically did not attract withholding tax under the Parent-Subsidiary Directive ("P.S.D.") or the Interest and Royalty Directives of the European Commission ("E.C.").

For other U.S.-based groups – primarily, those companies that regularly received dividend payments from European operations – the use of a holding company could reduce foreign withholding taxes claimed as foreign tax credits by the U.S. parent in many instances. This was true especially where the U.S. did not have an income tax treaty in force with a particular country or the treaty provided for relatively high withholding tax rates on dividends. Nonetheless, sophisticated planning was often required to take full advantage of the foreign tax credit because of various limitations and roadblocks that existed under U.S. tax law.

Foreign Tax Credit Planning in the U.S.

Although the foreign tax credit has often been described as a "dollar-for-dollar reduction of U.S. tax" when foreign taxes are paid or deemed to be paid by a U.S. parent company, the reality has been quite different. Only taxes that were imposed on items of "foreign-source taxable income" could be claimed as credits.1 This rule, known as "the foreign tax credit limitation," was intended to prevent foreign income taxes from being claimed as a credit against U.S. tax on U.S.-taxable income. The U.S., as with most countries that eliminate double taxation through a credit system, maintains that it has primary tax jurisdiction over domestic taxable income.

The foreign tax credit limitation was structured to prevent so-called "cross crediting," under which high taxes on operating income could be used to offset U.S. tax on lightly-taxed investment income. For many years, the foreign tax credit limitation was applied separately with regard to eight different categories, or baskets, of income designed to prevent the absorption of excess foreign tax credits by low-tax foreign-source income.

In substance, this eviscerated the benefit of the foreign tax credit when looked at on an overall basis. The problem was eased when the number of foreign tax credit baskets was reduced from eight to two: passive and general.

Additionally, the foreign tax credit was reduced for dividends received from foreign corporations that, in the hands of the recipient, benefited from reduced rates of tax in the U.S. The portion of foreign dividends received by U.S. individuals that qualify for the 0%, 15%, or 20% tax rate under Code §1(h)(11)(B)(i) were removed from the numerator and denominator of the foreign tax credit limitation to reflect the reduced tax rate.2 This treatment reduced the foreign tax credit limitation when a U.S.-resident individual received both qualifying dividends from a foreign corporation and other items of foreign-source income within the same basket that are subject to ordinary tax rates.

As a result of all the foregoing rules, a U.S.-based group was required to determine (i) the portion of its overall taxable income that was derived from foreign sources, (ii) the portion derived in each "foreign tax credit basket," and (iii) the portion derived from sources in the U.S. This was not an easy task, and in some respects, the rules did not achieve an equitable result from management's viewpoint.

Allocation and Apportionment Rules for Expenses

U.S. income tax regulations required expenses of the U.S. parent company to be allocated and apportioned to all income, including foreign dividend income.3 The allocation and apportionment procedures set forth in the regulations were exhaustive and tended to maximize the apportionment of expenses to foreign-source income. For example, all interest expense of the U.S. parent corporation and the U.S. members of its affiliated group were allocated and apportioned under a set of rules that allocated interest expense on an asset-based basis to all income of the group.4 Direct tracing of interest expense to income derived from a particular asset was permitted in only limited circumstances5 involving qualified nonrecourse indebtedness,6 certain integrated financial transactions,7 and certain related controlled foreign corporation ("C.F.C.") indebtedness.8 Research and development expenses, stewardship expenses, charitable deductions, and state franchise taxes needed to be allocated and apportioned among the various classes of income reported on a tax return. These rules tended to reduce the amount of foreign-source taxable income in a particular category, and in some cases, eliminated all income in that category altogether.

The problem was worsened by carryovers of overall foreign loss accounts.9 These were "off-book" accounts that arose when expenses incurred in a particular prior year that were allocable and apportionable to foreign-source income exceeded the amount of foreign-source gross income of the year. Where that occurred, the loss was carried over to future years and reduced the foreign-source taxable income of the subsequent year when computing the foreign tax credit limitation.

Self-Help Through Inversion Transactions

The pressure that was placed on the full use of the foreign tax credit by U.S.-based groups resulted in several public companies undergoing inversion transactions. In these transactions, shares of the U.S. parent company held by the public were exchanged for comparable shares of a newly-formed offshore company to which foreign subsidiaries were eventually transferred. While the share exchange and the transfer of assets arguably were taxable events, the identity of the shareholder group (i.e., foreign persons or pension plans) or the market value of the shares (i.e., shares trading at relatively low values) often eliminated actual tax exposure in the U.S. Thereafter, the foreign subsidiaries were owned directly or indirectly by a foreign parent corporation organized in a tax-favored jurisdiction and the foreign tax credit problems disappeared.

This form of "self-help" was attacked in the anti-inversion rules of Code §7874. In some circumstances, Code §7874 imposes tax on inversion gains that cannot be reduced by credits or net operating loss carryforwards.10 This occurs in the case described below:

  • A foreign corporation acquires substantially all of the properties held directly or indirectly by a domestic corporation or substantially all of the properties constituting a trade or business of a domestic partnership.
  • After the acquisition, at least 60% of the stock of the acquiring entity is held by either (i) former shareholders of the domestic corporation by reason of their holding stock in the domestic corporation, or (ii) former partners of the domestic partnership by reason of holding a capital or profits interest in the domestic partnership.
  • After the acquisition, the expanded affiliated group which includes the entity does not have substantial business activities in the foreign country in which, or under the law of which, the entity was created or organized when compared to the total business activities of the expanded affiliated group.11

In other circumstances, the acquiring entity is considered to be a domestic corporation for purposes of U.S. tax law. This occurs when the former shareholders or partners own at least 80% of the stock of the acquiring entity after the transaction.12

Broad regulatory authority has been granted to the I.R.S. to carry out the purposes of Code §7874. By 2017, 12 regulations were issued to address situations that appear beyond a literal reading of the statute, but are nonetheless deemed to be abusive by the I.R.S. Abuses that have been addressed by the I.R.S. include the following examples:

  • Identifying circumstances where the minimum stock ownership requirement ostensibly is not met, but the foreign acquiring corporation holds a significant amount of passive assets, suggesting the existence of an asset-stuffing transaction intended to avoid a trigger for application of the anti-inversion provisions13
  • Combining prior acquisitions of U.S. targets by the foreign acquirer when used to bolster a much larger single acquisition of a target14
  • Combining prior acquisitions of foreign targets by the foreign acquirer when used to bolster a much larger single acquisition of a target15
  • Addressing certain transfers of stock of a foreign acquiring corporation, through a spin-off or otherwise, following an acquisition
  • Identifying the occurrence of certain distributions that are not made in the ordinary course of businesses by the U.S. entity, suggesting an intent to avoid a trigger for application of the anti-inversion provisions16
  • Identifying the acquisition by a C.F.C. of obligations of or equity investments in the new foreign parent corporation or certain foreign affiliates suggesting an intent to avoid taxable investments in U.S. property when such investments were taxable in the hands of a U.S. parent corporation17
  • Addressing the investment of pre-inversion earnings and profits of a C.F.C. through a post-inversion transaction that terminates the C.F.C. status of foreign subsidiaries or substantially dilutes a U.S. shareholder's interest in those earnings and profits18
  • Related-party stock sales subject to Code §304 (which converts a stock sale of controlled stock into a dividend payment) that are intended to remove untaxed foreign earnings and profits of a C.F.C.19

In 2016, the Treasury Department adopted updates to the U.S. Model Income Tax Convention (the "2016 U.S. Model"), which serves as the basic document that the U.S. submits when negotiating an income tax treaty.

The draft provisions propose, inter alia, to reduce the tax benefits that may be enjoyed by an expatriated group by imposing full withholding taxes on key payments such as dividends,20 interest,21 and royalties22 made to connected persons that are residents of a treaty country by "expatriated entities" as defined under the Code.

This lasts for ten years and goes to the heart of the bargain between the U.S. and its treaty partners, because the full withholding tax reduces the tax in the country of the recipient.

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Footnotes

1. Section 904(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (hereinafter, the "Code").

2. Code §§1(h)(11)(C)(iv) and 904(b)(2)(B).

3. Treas. Reg. §§1.861-8 through 17.

4. Treas. Reg. §§1.861-9T(f)(1) and (g).

5. Treas. Reg. §1.861-10T(a).

6. Treas. Reg. §1.861-10T(b).

7. Treas. Reg. §1.861-10T(c).

8. Treas. Reg. §1.861-10T(e).

9. Code §904(f).

10. Code §7874(a)(1).

11. Code §7874(a)(2)(B).

12. Code §7878(b).

13. Treas. Reg. §1.7874-7T.

14. Treas. Reg. §1.7874-8T.

15. Treas. Reg. §1.7874-9T.

16. Treas. Reg. §1.7874-10T.

17. Treas. Reg. §1.7874-11T. The adoption of Code §245A eliminates the taxable event that otherwise exists for an investment in U.S. property in the context of a U.S. corporation owning 10% or more of the shares of a foreign corporation. See Prop. Treas. Reg. §1.956-1.

18. Treas. Reg. §1.7874-12T.

19. Treas. Reg. §1.304-7T.

20. Paragraph 5 of Article 10 (Dividends) of the 2016 U.S. Model.

21. Id., ¶2(d) of Article 11 (Interest).

22. Id., ¶2 of Article 12 (Royalties).

All of the authors acknowledge the assistance of Jennifer Lapper and Denisse Lopez at Ruchelman P.L.L.C., for converting 18 separate submissions prepared by persons having a multitude of birth languages into a cohesive and accurate monograph.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.