Will COVID-19 Highlight How Multinationals Really Conduct Business?

This short piece was prepared for a Tax Notes Federal Global Roundtable on “Displaced Employees and COVID-19: The New Tax Obligations”. It points out that the continued success of many U.S.-headquartered MNEs to continue their supply chains and their conduct of internet-based businesses despite the lock-downs and significantly decrease business travel during the COVID-19 pandemic is evidence that significant profits reported by foreign group members due to profit-shifting structures are really earned through business activities conducted partly or wholly within the U.S. This short piece notes:“Why have MNEs been able to so easily, relatively speaking, maintain and even expand their businesses? In short, modern communication and management tools have allowed their centralized managements and operating personnel, many of them being within the United States, to manage, direct, and conduct their worldwide businesses with little or no interruption.”The success of these MNEs during these adverse times should cause the IRS to consider whether unintended partnerships have been created and whether the effectively connected income rules should be applied to directly tax shifted profits.