The Curious Non-Appeal of Veritas

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December 6, 2010

Veritas Software Corp. v. Commissioner, 133 T.C. No. 14 (2009) was the first cost sharing buy-in case to go to trial.  The question before the court was the value to place on the transfer by Veritas to its Irish subsidiary of the right to use technical and marketing intangibles related to software development.  Veritas argued that the valuation should be based on an adjusted comparable uncontrolled transaction (CUT) analysis (involving licenses of the same or similar property).  The IRS argued that it should be based on an aggregate discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis that valued the hypothetical transfer of a portion of Veritas’ business to the Irish sub; i.e., an “akin to a sale” theory.

The Tax Court held for the taxpayer in substantial part.  Finding that the IRS’s “akin to a sale theory was akin to a surrender,” it rejected the IRS position that the “synergies” supposedly effectuated by considering as an aggregate various finite-lived intangibles (many of which were not even transferred) caused the whole to live forever.  This is Gunnery Sergeant Hartman’s valuation method:

Marines die, that’s what we’re here for.  But the Marine Corps lives forever.  And that means you live forever.  Full Metal Jacket (1987).

Rejecting this method, the Court dismantled the IRS’s DCF valuation which, through the application of unrealistic useful lives, growth rates, and discount rates, purported to value the transfer of assets as if it was valuing the sale of a business enterprise.

The Tax Court is correct.  The Gunny’s method doesn’t work in IP valuation and, although it sounds good, it doesn’t really work with respect to the Marine Corps either.  The whole doesn’t become everlasting simply because of the very important, historic sacrifices made by its earlier parts.  Current and future success depends on the valor (or value) of the current parts as much as, and often more than, that of the former.  Showing an understanding of this principle, the Tax Court found that a significant contributor to the anticipated future success of the Irish business was old-fashioned hard work by Veritas Ireland and its foreign affiliates.  Accordingly, the Court held that the taxpayer’s CUT method, with certain adjustments, properly reflected the value of the transferred intangibles based on their expected useful lives.

In the ordinary course, one would expect the IRS to appeal a decision where it believed the factual and legal conclusions were fundamentally erroneous.  However, like the schoolyard bully who gets beat up by the first nerdy kid he picks on, the IRS has kept its tactics but changed its victim.  The IRS declined to appeal Veritas, while setting out its plan to take someone else’s lunch money in an Action on Decision that refuses to acquiesce in the Tax Court decision and indicates that it will challenge future transactions under the same aggregate value method rejected in Veritas.  The AOD states that the IRS is not appealing Veritas because the Tax Court’s decision allegedly turns on erroneous factual findings that would be difficult to overturn on appeal.

This attempt by the IRS to use an AOD to continue to harass taxpayers should fail.  The Tax Court’s opinion did not conclude that the useful life of the pre-existing IP could never survive later technology developments.  And it did not exclude the possibility of future product value flowing from that original IP.  Rather, it rejected the view that synergies allow the IRS to turn a specific asset valuation into a global business valuation and, while they are at it, include in that valuation non-compensable goodwill and going-concern value.  The “head-start” IP provides is indeed valuable, but it is properly valued as part of a specific asset and not in some “synergistic” stew of assets, goodwill, going concern value and business opportunity.  (While we are at it, Hospital Corp. of America v. Commissioner, 81 T.C. 520 (1983)) did not bless the valuation of a business opportunity; it held that while proprietary systems, methods and processes are compensable, the mere business opportunity to engage in R&D is not.)  IP does give competitive advantages that do not necessarily disappear in next generation product developments.  However, one cannot treat an IP transfer as the segmentation and transfer of an entire living, breathing business. This ignores the transaction that happened but, more importantly, the real and substantial risks assumed by the parties in developing the future IP, risks that drive the real value of those future products, products that are but one part of the value of that continuing business.  Contra Litigating Treas. Reg. § 1.482-7T.

The AOD acknowledges that “[t]he facts found by the Court materially differed from the determinations made by the Service” but does not accept the consequences.  The Tax Court disagreed with the IRS’s view of “the facts” because those “facts” were entirely inconsistent with the business realities of IP transfers.  If it does not believe its position merits an appeal, the IRS should accept its loss.  Instead, it is pushing around other taxpayers by foisting the same untenable “factual” story on them.  As former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli once said, “courage is fire and bullying is smoke.”  The Veritas AOD is nothing but smoke.