Tax heads of multinational companies say the UK Supreme Court’s decision in the Prudential case, which said legal advice privilege (LAP) only protects communications between taxpayers and lawyers, will not make them choose lawyers above accountants for tax legal advice.
Indian taxpayers will feel on surer ground in adopting positions based on decisions by the Authority for Advance Ruling (AAR) after a recent Bombay High Court decision.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is investing heavily in challenging multinationals over cross-border debt-equity arrangements but taxpayers have said the US tax authority is not handling these cases well.
A case between Amazon and the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) cautions taxpayers against performing valuations that assign unrealistically short life-spans to transferred intangibles, though could also leave the IRS rethinking its approach to challenging these arrangements.
Taxpayers and accountancy firms were left reeling by this morning’s UK Supreme Court decision against Prudential, which said that legal advice privilege (LAP) cannot be extended to communications between taxpayers and accountants.
The UK Supreme Court is delivering its judgement in Prudential’s case against HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) tomorrow. The court will decide whether legal professional privilege (LPP) should cover communications between taxpayers and accountants as well as lawyers.
