Intellectual Property Holding Company

"Many companies that have become household names have avoided billions in taxes by 'parking' their valuable intellectual property assets in holding companies located in tax-favored jurisdictions. In the United States, for example, many domestic companies have moved their IP to tax-favored states such as Delaware or Nevada, while multinational companies have done the same by setting up foreign subsidiaries in Ireland, Singapore, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. In this illuminating work, tax scholar Jeffrey A. Maine teams up with IP expert Xuan-Thao Nguyen to explain how the use of these IP holding companies has become economically unjustified and socially unacceptable, and how numerous calls for change have been made. This book should be read by anyone interested in how corporations - including Gore-Tex, Victoria's Secret, Sherwin-Williams, Toys-R-Us, Apple, Microsoft, and Uber - have avoided tax liability with IP holding companies and how different constituencies are working to stop them"-- "The laws of taxation are comparable to the rules of a complex game, such as poker. Like poker, "playing" tax is about winning, or at least keeping, money. The seriousness of either game depends on the size of the stakes and whether the player can afford to lose. It is, after all, only money. But there remains one crucial difference: unlike poker, one cannot fold or opt out of the tax game. We are all obliged to play"--