2022 IFA International Tax Student Writing Award; Call For Entrants In 2023 Competition

The winner of the International Fiscal Association's 2022 International Tax Student Writing Competition is: 

Neil Kelliher (Virginia), Improving Transfer Pricing Litigation by Aligning Section 482 with Litigants’ Incentives, 52 Tax Mgmt. Int’l J. __ (2023).

Faculty Sponsor: Ruth Mason

The Section 482 regulations create a comprehensive system for regulating transfer pricing. But litigation involving these regulations often leads to unsatisfactory results. This issue can be tied to the idea that the section 482 regulations are seemingly written for application by a disinterested third party, while transfer pricing litigation necessarily pits the IRS against a multinational entity. 

This adversarial context exposes weaknesses in the regulations: The same flexibility that enables the regulations to find the best possible pricing of a transaction can create indeterminacy that extends and complicates litigation.

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

2023 IFA International Tax Student Writing Competition
Subject: Any topic relating to U.S. taxation of income from international activities, including taxation under U.S. tax treaties.
Open to: All students during the 2022-23 academic year (including independent study and summer 2023 school courses) pursuing a graduate degree (J.D., L.L.M., S.J.D., M.S.T., MTA, Masters of Taxation, or similar program). Any appropriate papers written in fall 2022 or spring and summer 2023.
Submission Deadline:  September 30, 2023.
Prize: $5,000 cash, plus expenses-paid invitation to the IFA USA Branch Annual Meeting to be held in 2024 for the competition winner as well as the faculty sponsor. The award winner and the academic institution of the competition winner will each receive a one-year membership in the IFA USA Branch. View the member benefits HERE.

Here are the recent winners:

• 2021: Mohanad Salaimi (Michigan), Corporate Inversions: Getting on the Tax Reform Train Before It Leaves the Station, 41 Va. Tax Rev. __ (2022)
• 2021: Nory Dianne R. Miano (Georgetown), Debt vs. Equity Financing and Business Taxation in a Post-BEPS/Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive/Corona World, 51 BNA Tax Mgmt. Int’l J. 1 (2022)
• 2020: Shay Moyal (S.J.D. 2020, Michigan; Davis Polk & Wardwell, New York), Don’t Stop the Beat, 166 Tax Notes Fed. 721 (Feb. 3, 2020)
• 2019:  David Rubin (Virginia), EB OR NOT EB? That is the Question Treasury Must Answer After Brexit, 49 BNA Tax Mgmt. Int’l J. 1 (2020)
• 2018:  Ivan Ozawa Ozai (LL.B. 2019, McGill), Tax Competition and the Ethics of Burden Sharing, 42 Fordham Int'l J. 61 (2018). 
• 2017:  David Maranjian (J.D. 2017, Virgina), What’s in a Name? XILINX, ALTERA, and Why Using “Arm’s Length” as a Catchall is Causing Problems for Treasury, 47 BNA Tax Mgmt. Int'l J. ___ (2018)
• 2016:  Amanda Kazacos (LL.M. 2016, NYU), BEPS Action 6: The Principle Purpose Test Revisited, and Amanda M. Leon (J.D. 2016, University of Virginia), If the Commission “LOBs” a Pitch to the ECJ, Will It Strike Out Again? Reconsidering European Court of Justice Jurisprudence Regarding Limitation on Benefits Clauses in Bilateral Tax Treaties and Why the United States Should Care.
• 2015:  Sienna Carly White (J.D. 2015, Notre Dame), Cost Sharing Agreements & the Arm’s Length Standard: A Matter of Statutory Interpretation?, 19 Fla. Tax Rev. 191 (2016).
• 2014:  Mateusz M. Krauze (LL.M. 2014, Harvard), Impact of Cloud Computing on Permanent Establishments under the OECD Model Tax Convention, 44 TM Int'l J. 44 (2015).
• 2013:  Benjamin B. Vick (J.D. 2013, Boston University), Related-Party Transfers of Intangibles: Standards and Recommendations for Combating International Transfer Pricing Abuses, 43 TM Int'l J.  207 (2014).
• 2012:  Assaf Prussak (S.J.D. Candidate, Michigan), The Income of the 21st Century: Online Advertising as a Case Study for The Implications of Technology for Source-Based Taxation, 16 Tul. J. Tech. & Intell. Prop. (2013).
• 2011:  Bradford Craig (J.D. 2012, Temple), Congress, Have a Heart: Practical Solutions to Punitive Measures Plaguing the Heart Act’s Expatriate Inheritance Tax, 26 Temp. Int'l & Comp. L.J. 69 (2012).
• 2010:  Kevin L. Preslan (J.D. 2011, Cleveland State), Turnabout is Fair Play: The U.S. Response to Mexico’s Request for Bank Account Information, 1 Global Bus. L. Rev. 203 (2011).
• 2009:  Samuel J. Lee (LL.M. 2009, Boston University), A Recommendation, in Light of the Current Economy, for Revising the Way § 304 Applies to International Transactions, 38 Tax Mgmt. Int'l J. 500 (Aug. 2009). 
• 2008:  Jason Sullivan (LL.M. 2008, Florida), Debt-Equity Hybrid Instruments in a Cross-Border Setting: A Focus on the U.S. Foreign Tax Credit, 53 Tax Notes Int'l 817 (Mar. 2, 2009).