Mayer Brown's Tax Controversy lawyers have extensive worldwide experience in a wide range of areas, including:

Audits
Administrative Appeals
Litigation 
Appellate

In the US, we have conducted audits related to cross-border transfer pricing for goods, services, and intangibles; economic substance issues pertaining to leasing and financial products; debt versus equity characterization; corporate acquisitions and divestitures, including the tax treatment of tangible and intangible assets in acquisitions; tax accounting issues; conversion of possessions corporation to controlled foreign corporation status; offshore insurance operations; issues concerning whether a taxpayer is engaged in a US trade or business or has effectively connected US source income; sourcing of export sales income; manufacturing characterization for Subpart F purposes; creditability of foreign taxes and the US implications of foreign country taxation; and transactions which result in utilization of foreign tax credits. Skillful representation during audits is especially important to resolve transfer pricing controversies quickly and efficiently, particularly in today’s environment of increased scrutiny on related-party transactions. In the United Kingdom, we have extensive experience acting for corporate taxpayers on a wide range of tax disputes, including negotiating settlements with the UK tax authority and experience at every level of the UK tax appeals system. In addition, our Paris tax group has assisted with tax audits and litigation relating to a wide range of issues.

Successful representation in large corporate audits involves not only substantive tax expertise, but mastery of unique and sometimes arcane procedural rules.

• In the Westreco case, we were successful in establishing crucial procedural safeguards against abusive audits.
  
  
• We have represented several clients in successfully defending against Internal Revenue Service summons enforcement cases in federal district court.
  
  
• We are experienced with the I.R.C. § 6038A information-reporting regulations for foreign-owned corporations and the I.R.C. § 6662 transfer pricing penalty regulations. We successfully defended one taxpayer against an attempt by the IRS to use I.R.C. § 6038A to force the company to translate thousands of pages of documents from Japanese into English.
  
  
• We represented taxpayers in precedent-setting actions by the IRS to obtain tax return preparation software source code.
  
  
• We assisted a major corporation in obtaining a refund of tax paid after an accounting restatement reduced its reported income.

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Administrative Appeals
Our US lawyers have handled many cases in the IRS Appeals Office, and have substantial experience negotiating with IRS Appeals officers and representing taxpayers before Appeals. We have also participated in the Fast Track mediation process with IRS Exam, which involves using IRS Appeals personnel as mediators. We have also been involved in negotiating with the IRS to establish arbitration and mediation procedures used as an alternative to trial for resolving cases.

Among other issues handled in Appeals, we have handled several large cases involving transfer pricing issues, customer-based intangibles, employee benefits and executive compensation issues, debt-equity characterization, leasing, involuntary conversion, subpart F issues, FSC and ETI issues, and corporate issues such as like-kind exchanges, leveraged buy-outs, and the deductibility of interest on debt incurred to redeem stock. We have handled Appeals cases for clients from a wide array of industries, including many of the world’s largest pharmaceutical and technology companies.

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Litigation
For most taxpayers, litigation is an option of last resort. Indeed, the vast majority of controversy matters are settled before litigation becomes necessary. Nevertheless, it is our philosophy that advantageous settlements are most often achieved when the IRS believes that the taxpayer’s counsel is willing and able to litigate effectively if the need arises. We have found that tax litigation is conducted most effectively by lawyers who have a solid background in tax and who are also trained in the unique skills of litigation. For this reason, the lawyers in our tax controversy group spend virtually all of their time on tax controversy matters. This specialization ensures that skillful representation in the courtroom is combined with sophisticated tax advice.

Collectively we have litigated more than 100 US tax cases. Particular areas of focus within our group include cross-border transfer pricing for goods, services, and intangibles; economic substance issues; corporate reorganizations; leasing and financial products issues, including LILOs; tax-advantaged transactions; tax treatment of tangible and intangible assets in acquisitions; tax accounting issues; offshore insurance operations; issues concerning whether a taxpayer is engaged in a US trade or business or has effectively connected US source income; sourcing of export sales income; manufacturing characterization for Subpart F purposes; entitlement to, and computation of, FSC and ETI benefits; and bank taxation, particularly with regard to creditability of foreign taxes and the US implications of foreign-country taxation. Specific matters include: 

• We recently represented Consolidated Edison in the first lease-in-lease-out (LILO) case to be tried. Consolidated Edison involves the tax consequences of an international leveraged lease of a co-generation plant in the Netherlands. The IRS challenged the transaction on substance-form and other grounds, disallowing rental and interest deductions. The case was tried before the United States Court of Federal Claims in October and November 2007. A decision is pending.
  
  
• On behalf of Tribune Company, we litigated a case presenting the question of whether substance-over-form theories permit recharacterization of a transaction that was structured to comply with the requirements of the Code and Regulations for nontaxable reorganizations.
  
  
• We represented Saba Partnership in a challenge to investment partnerships as devoid of economic substance.
  
  
• We represented National Semiconductor and Seagate Technology in major transfer pricing cases involving their offshore manufacturing operations.
  
  
• We litigated two related cases, United Parcel Service and Overseas Partners Ltd., regarding the tax treatment of income attributable to parcel insurance purchased by UPS’s shippers. These complex cases involved several issues, including economic substance and transfer pricing issues. The Eleventh Circuit vindicated UPS’s position on economic substance, reversing the Tax Court’s holding on that issue, and remanding the case for further proceedings on the transfer pricing issue.
  
  
• In Nestlé Holdings, Inc., we litigated several issues, including valuation and amortization of intangibles and debt-equity characterization, which arose from Nestlé’s $3.2 billion acquisition of the Carnation Company.
  
  
• UK practitioners have acted in a number of landmark cases including Customs & Excise Commissioners v. Thorn Materials Supply Limited concerning the effectiveness of value added tax pre-payments, EMI Group Electronics Limited v. Coldicott (HM Inspector of Taxes) concerning the income tax treatment of contractual payments in lieu of notice to employees and M&G Securities Ltd. v. Inland Revenue Commissioners concerning the stamp duty treatment of the in specie redemption of unit trusts.

We have successfully represented taxpayers on appeal from lower court decisions in major tax cases and have participated directly in the briefing and argument of cases of major importance to the development of tax law, including: 

• DC Circuit:  Riggs (holding that official tax receipts of Brazilian government were entitled to evidentiary presumption)
  
  
• Federal Circuit:  Bankers Trust (reversing Court of Federal Claims on Brazilian "pecuniary benefit" foreign tax credit issue)
  
  
• Second Circuit:  Nestlé Holdings, Inc. (I.R.C. § 482 reallocations, Carnation acquisition)
  
  
• Fourth Circuit: Volvo Group North America, Inc. (vacating district court decision on application of I.R.C. § 471 to inventory transfers)
  
  
• Sixth Circuit:  The Limited (reversing the Tax Court’s holding that CFC’s purchase of CDs from affiliated credit card bank failed to quality as § 956(b)(2)(A) “deposits with [a] person carrying on banking business”)
  
  
• Seventh Circuit:  Continental Illinois Corporation (Brazilian foreign tax credits, foreign tax credits relating to net quoted loans, and recognition of income on CAP loans)
  
  
• Eighth Circuit:  Norwest (Brazilian foreign tax credits)
  
  
• Ninth Circuit:  Intel Corporation (allocation of income partly from sources within a foreign country under Treas. Reg. § 1.863-3(b)(2))
  
  
• Tenth Circuit:  Tele-Communications, Inc. (application of I.R.C. § 1253 to cable television franchises)
  
  
• Eleventh Circuit:  United Parcel Service (vacating Tax Court’s finding on sham, assignment of income and penalties)
  
  
• US Supreme Court:  Boeing (allocation of R&D costs in determination of sales income under DISC and FSC rules)