Intellectual Property Tax Planning

For most multinational companies, their intellectual property (IP) is their most valuable asset and greatest global economic driver.

As a result, cross-border use and transfers of IP often present the most significant international tax planning opportunities and highest potential tax risks for most multinational companies. It is critical for companies to have well-defined IP strategies and related transfer pricing arrangements that are tax-defensible and properly documented to meet relevant U.S. and foreign requirements. This is the case with virtually all forms of IP, whether or not legally protected, including IP such as patents, trademarks, brand names, copyrights, unpatented technology, product formulas, manufacturing processes, customer contracts, and even workforce-in-place.

Global IP planning, IP transactional analysis and IP transfer pricing strategies are foundation blocks of BPM’s ITS practice, having been primary areas of focus throughout the careers of our ITS professionals. The dedicated professionals in our ITS practice have in-depth expertise and decades of relevant experience helping companies of all sizes and stages, and operating in all industry and business sectors, to identify, develop, implement and maintain company-specific tax-effective global IP strategies. We align our leading-edge IP planning expertise with a company’s business strategies and objectives to achieve optimum tax-effective results – results that are tax-defensible and that avoid undue risks.

We offer the complete range of IP tax planning and consulting services, including:

• Application of withholding taxes and double tax treaties to IP transactions
• Development and implementation of global IP tax strategies
• Development and implementation of tax-effective IP acquisition strategies
• Evaluation of alternatives for intercompany IP use and transfers
• Evaluation of effective tax rate impact of alternative IP strategies
• Identification and characterization of IP assets for U.S. and foreign tax purposes
• Identification of tax-effective IP strategies for global supply chain optimization
• Structuring tax-effective intercompany and third-party IP arrangements
• Tax-effective integration of acquired IP into existing cost-sharing arrangements
• Transfer pricing planning and documentation for intercompany IP transactions
• Viability and benefits analyses for IP migration and cost-sharing transactions