Businesses & investors

Once staff, contracts or payments cross a border, the group needs to know where it has a taxable presence, which company should carry each part of the business, and what withholding tax and treaty relief apply to the payments between them.

A holding or treasury company only works if its location has the substance and treaty access the group is relying on. We check that before it is set up, and again when the rules change. On funding, intra-group loans and listed debt are compared on cost, risk and tax treatment before the group commits to either.

On an acquisition, a sale, a post-deal integration or a planned exit, we work with the deal team so the tax cost in each country is known before terms are agreed. When assets move between group companies, we check beforehand which reliefs for transfers within a group are available in the countries concerned.

Each tax authority looks at the same intra-group transactions from its own side. The group's pricing is built from an analysis of who performs which functions, owns which assets and bears which risks, including brand royalties, know-how and other intangibles. Documentation follows the OECD guidelines and each country's own rules, from local and master files to the country-by-country report for the largest groups and the UAE disclosure form where it applies.

The global minimum tax rules apply to large multinational groups in every country that has adopted them. We advise on what they mean for the group across its countries of operation, whether a safe harbour is available, and whether a restructuring would make the group eligible for one.

Tax paid in one country may be final, or it may be credited against tax in another, and the credit is lost when the second country does not tax the same income. We work through the treaties between the countries involved so the same profit is not taxed twice without relief.

For groups adding the UAE or Saudi Arabia to their footprint: whether local operations create a taxable presence, whether free zone companies have the people and assets to support the tax status claimed, whether to form a UAE tax group and how losses move within it, and what happens to losses, group membership and distributions when a company there is liquidated.