In their article for State Tax Notes, Sutherland attorneys Jonathan Feldman, Stephen Burroughs and Timothy Gustafson analyze the Multistate Tax Commission’s Arm’s-Length Adjustment Service (ALAS) program. While most taxpayers instinctively cringe at any new MTC initiative, the ALAS program is a potential positive for corporate taxpayers due to some disturbing trends arising in state
arm's length
Royal Treatment: No Evidence that Rent-A-Center’s Intercompany Royalty Payments Distorted Indiana Income
By Mike Kerman and Madison Barnett
The Indiana Tax Court granted summary judgment to Rent-A-Center East, Inc. (RAC), finding that the Department of Revenue’s determination that RAC and two affiliates should have filed a combined return was improper. This case was on remand from a prior Indiana Supreme Court ruling (please see our prior coverage…
Not So Fast: ALAS Fails to Attain Sufficient State Support
At the Multistate Tax Commission (MTC) Executive Committee Meeting in Spokane, Washington, the Arm’s-Length Adjustment Service (ALAS) Advisory Group provided an update on its transfer pricing effort. On May 7, 2015, the Executive Committee approved the Final Program Design for the transfer pricing program (the Program). After receiving approval from the MTC’s Executive Committee, ALAS…
Alas, the MTC Executive Committee Approves Its Transfer Pricing Program Design
After nearly a year of planning, the Multistate Tax Commission Executive Committee today approved the Arm’s-Length Adjustment Services Advisory Group Final Program Design. The following six states have agreed to participate in the Program: Alabama, Iowa, Kentucky, New Jersey, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
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If They Build It, Will They Come? ALAS Advisory Group Prepares Final Program Design to Present to MTC Executive Committee Amidst Light Early Interest From States
The Multistate Tax Commission’s Arm’s-Length Adjustment Services Advisory Group met via teleconference to continue the design of a program to analyze intercompany transfer pricing. Since they last met on March 4, the Group sent invitations to 48 states to join the program. Of the responding 21 states, 4 states indicated an interest in joining the…
MTC Inches Closer to Developing Its Transfer Pricing Program
The Arm’s Length Adjustment Service Advisory Group of the Multistate Tax Commission continued its transfer pricing effort with a teleconference today to discuss its training and implementation program. This initiative has extended over a year, and the MTC is aiming for approval from the Executive Committee by May 2015. States…
Not in Our State: Indiana Rejects Federal Transfer Pricing Study to Justify Intercompany Pricing and Forced Combination
By Jonathan Maddison and Timothy Gustafson
The Indiana Department of Revenue determined that forced combination of an Indiana taxpayer, its wholly owned disregarded entity and its out-of-state parent company was appropriate where the disregarded entity generated 92% of the federal consolidated group’s sales but only 0.14% of the consolidated taxable income for the taxpayer. The…
Has New York City Added a Fourth Element for Determining a Combined Group?
A New York Tax Appeals Tribunal Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) recently determined that a federal savings and loan association was not required to include a subsidiary, which was formed as a Connecticut passive investment company, in its combined New York City bank tax return. In the Matter of the Petition of Astoria Financial Corporation &…
Fresh Powder in Vermont: Taxpayer and Ski Resort Not Unitary
By Stephen Burroughs and Andrew Appleby
A Vermont Superior Court held that the Commissioner of Taxes unconstitutionally applied the unitary business principle to AIG and its subsidiary, Stowe Mountain Resort. Stowe operates a ski resort, lodging and conference business in Vermont. None of AIG’s other 700 subsidiaries resemble a ski resort, and the Commissioner acknowledged…
MTC Launches Transfer Pricing Effort
On June 2, the Arm’s Length Advisory Group (the Group) of the Multistate Tax Commission (MTC) met in St. Louis, Missouri, to begin the process of developing a multistate arm’s length pricing adjustment service. States participating in the meeting included Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, New Jersey, North Carolina and the District of Columbia. Joe Garrett (Alabama) was elected to chair the Group. The Group is primarily concerned with addressing the inability to effectively conduct transfer pricing audits at the state level. It seeks to create a viable project design sufficiently developed for an operational model by July 2015.
Continue Reading MTC Launches Transfer Pricing Effort