Allocation of Multinational Business Income: Reassessing the Formulary Apportionment Option

The Allocation of Multinational Business Income: Reassessing the Formulary Apportionment Option

Edited by Richard Krever & François Vaillancourt

Although arm’s length methodology continues to prevail in international taxation policy, it has long been replaced by the formulary apportionment method at the subnational level in a few federal countries. Its use is planned for international profit allocation as an element of the European Union’s CCCTB proposals. In this timely book – a global guide to formulary apportionment, both as it exists in practice and how it might function internationally – a knowledgeable group of contributors from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, address this actively debated topic, both in respect of its technical aspects and its promise as a global response to the avoidance, distortions, and unfairness of current allocation systems.

Drawing on a wealth of literature considering formulary apportionment in the international sphere and considering decades of experience with the system in the states and provinces of the United States and Canada, the contributors explicate and examine such pertinent issues as the following:

• the debate about what factors should be used to allocate profits under a formulary apportionment system and experience in jurisdictions using formulary apportionment;
• application of formulary apportionment in specific sectors such as digital enterprises and the banking industry;
• the political economy of establishing and maintaining a successful formulary apportionment regime;
• formulary apportionment proposals for Europe;
• the role of traditional tax criteria such as economic efficiency, fairness, ease of administration, and robustness to avoidance and incentive compatibility;
• determining which parts of a multinational group are included in a formulary apportionment unit; and
• whether innovative profit-split methodologies such as those developed by China are shifting traditional arm’s length methods to a quasi-formulary apportionment system.

Providing a comprehensive understanding of all aspects of the formulary apportionment option, this state of the art summary of history, current practice, proposals and prospects in the ongoing debate over arm’s length versus formulary apportionment methodologies will be welcomed by practitioners, policy-makers, and academics concerned with international taxation, all of whom will gain an understanding of the case put forward by proponents for adoption of formulary apportionment in Europe and globally and the counter-arguments they face. Readers will acquire a better understanding of the implications of formulary apportionment and its central role in the current debate about the future of international taxation rules.