US debt-equity special focus

International Tax Review is part of Legal Benchmarking Limited, 1-2 Paris Garden, London, SE1 8ND

Copyright © Legal Benchmarking Limited and its affiliated companies 2025

Accessibility | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Modern Slavery Statement

US debt-equity special focus

us-debt-equity-puff.gif

US taxpayers who seek to exploit the differences in the tax treatment of debt and equity will need to prepare for more aggressive enforcement by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The decisions in three recent court cases, all featured in this International Tax Review special focus, suggest how companies could deal with this approach from the tax authorities.

Download the special report as a PDF

The IRS's fight against hybrid financing instruments is an issue US tax directors cannot afford to ignore.

Tax-minimising opportunities arise for multinationals when financing cross-border transactions because treatment of hybrid debt-equity instruments across jurisdictions is not uniform. And the US Tax Court has shown in recent rulings that tax planning, to benefit from such opportunities, is perfectly acceptable.

But the IRS does not like it and is increasingly challenging multinationals on the issue. This report analyses the Hewlett Packard, Scottish Power and PepsiCo debt-equity cases, pulling out the practical lessons for taxpayers considering putting debt-equity structures in place.

It also examines how to defend a debt-equity position against an IRS challenge, with exclusive insight from the taxpayer and adviser team involved in guiding Scottish Power to its hard-fought Tax Court victory over the IRS.

Join your peers by engaging in the debate on LinkedIn and Twitter. The ITR Twitter handle is @Intltaxreview and you can share your views using #ITRdisputes

Tweet this         #ITRdisputes         LinkedIn group

Contents

us-debt-equity1-court.jpg

How to deal with debt-equity in the US

us-debt-equity2-pepsi.jpg

Has PepsiCo's US Tax Court win revealed "super factor" in deciding debt vs equity cases?

us-debt-equity3-scottishpower.jpg

How Scottish Power's US Tax Court victory could hamper IRS

us-debt-equity4-hp.jpg

Hewlett-Packard's court defeat is bad news for US banks

Download this special report as a PDF


Further reading on ITRPremium's Tax Disputes section

more across site & shared bottom lb ros

More from across our site

The climbdowns pave the way for a side-by-side deal to be concluded this week, as per the US Treasury secretary’s expectation; in other news, Taft added a 10-partner tax team
A vote to be held in 2026 could create Hogan Lovells Cadwalader, a $3.6bn giant with 3,100 lawyers across the Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific
Foreign companies operating in Libya face source-based taxation even without a local presence. Multinationals must understand compliance obligations, withholding risks, and treaty relief to avoid costly surprises
Hotel La Tour had argued that VAT should be recoverable as a result of proceeds being used for a taxable business activity
Tax professionals are still going to be needed, but AI will make it easier than starting from zero, EY’s global tax disputes leader Luis Coronado tells ITR
AI and assisting clients with navigating global tax reform contributed to the uptick in turnover, the firm said
In a post on X, Scott Bessent urged dissenting countries to the US/OECD side-by-side arrangement to ‘join the consensus’ to get a deal over the line
A new transatlantic firm under the name of Winston Taylor is expected to go live in May 2026 with more than 1,400 lawyers and 20 offices
As ITR’s exclusive data uncovers in-house dissatisfaction with case management, advisers cite Italy’s arcane tax rules
The new guidance is not meant to reflect a substantial change to UK law, but the requirement that tax advice is ‘likely to be correct’ imposes unrealistic expectations
Gift this article