Volume 9 No 5    /    Read Article

By Michael Peggs

Bad blood exists between the I.R.S. and Medtronic Inc. when it comes to transfer pricing matters. Regarding the tax years 2005 and 2006, the I.R.S. challenged a transfer pricing methodology it approved in an M.O.U. settlement with Medtronic involving the same transactions and issues in the context of an earlier year. The I.R.S. lost in an earlier case, appealed to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, which sent the matter back to the Tax Court to address several factual issues. In a recent decision, the Tax Court modified its earlier finding by adjusting the comparable uncontrolled transaction (“C.U.T.”) in a subjective way to obtain a result that seemed to be fair in the view of the court. Michael Peggs suggests that the second trial did not produce practical guidance that was any better than the very limited guidance in the original decision.   See more →