Tuesday, May 9, 2023

IFA International Writing Award for Tax Students 2022; Call for participants in the 2023 competition

The winner of the International Taxation Student Writing Contest 2022 of the International Fiscal Association is:

neil kelliher (Virginia), Improve transfer pricing litigation by aligning Section 482 with litigator incentives, 52 Tax management. International J. __ (2023).

Faculty Sponsor: Ruth Mason

The Section 482 regulations create a comprehensive system for regulating transfer pricing. But litigation related to these regulations often leads to unsatisfactory results. This problem can be linked to the idea that section 482 regulations are apparently written to be enforced by a disinterested third party, whereas transfer pricing disputes necessarily pit the IRS against a multinational entity.

This contradictory context exposes the weaknesses of the regulations: the very flexibility that allows regulations to find the best possible price for a transaction can create indeterminacy that lengthens and complicates litigation.

In this document, I propose three changes to section 482 and its regulations to account for the disparate incentives for litigants. First, I propose to strengthen the comparability requirements for the comparable uncontrolled transactions method. Second, I propose updating the best method rule to require mandatory robustness checks for transactions involving intangibles. And third, I propose the derogation of the judges’ ability to implement their own method when they are not convinced that either party’s method satisfies the best method rule. Each of these proposals will strengthen the existing transfer pricing regime and help ensure efficient and predictable litigation.

IFA International Tax Student Writing Contest 2023
Subject: Any subject related to US taxation of income from international activities, including taxation under US tax treaties.
open to: All students during the 2022-23 academic year (including independent study and 2023 summer school courses) seeking a graduate degree (JD, LLM, SJD, MST, MTA, Master of Taxation, or similar program) . Any appropriate documents written in Fall 2022 or Spring and Summer 2023.
submission deadline: September 30, 2023.
Prize: $5,000 in cash, plus an invitation with expenses paid to the annual meeting of the IFA USA branch to be held in 2024 for the winner of the competition and the sponsor of the faculty. The prize winner and the contest winner’s academic institution will each receive a one-year membership to the IFA USA branch. See member benefits HERE.

These are the recent winners:

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2023/05/2022-ifa-international-tax-student-writing-award-call-for-entrants-in-2023-competition.html

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