EU State aid and the tax allocation of multinationals’ profits

Abstract

This contribution examines the impact of the EU prohibition of State aid over the tax allocation of multinationals’ profits. All EU Member States apportion the taxable profit of multinational groups in accordance with transfer pricing regulations based on the arm’s length standard, namely, following a market valuation rationale. Although apparently neutral, such a standard may lead to prohibited aid both at the level of its regulatory design and its enforcement. These issues have been recently exacerbated due to the assessment of the “tax rulings” cases, i.e. State aid proceedings opened against the granting of individual, unpublished rulings by certain Member States to some of the largest multinationals operating in the EU, recently reviewed by the ECJ. Unlike most of the scholarly literature, which has focused on the specific issues raised in these cases, this article aims to comprehensively analyse the issues raised by the said regulations when confronted with the EU State aid regime, in line with the latest jurisprudence in this field. The examination starts by defining the aim and contradictions of the arm’s length standard, which is necessary to build a proper reference framework against which deviations resulting in a selective advantage may be detected. Such derogations potentially resulting in prohibited aid may arise when assessing the scope of these regulations, the existence of specific regimes deviating from the arm’s length standard rationale, and in the context of individual administrative acts (e.g. tax rulings) deviating from the content of the applicable transfer pricing regulations.