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.

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