Recent developments and government announcements have
highlighted the need for multinational groups to consider their
arrangements with intangibles in order to prepare for and manage
revenue authority scrutiny.
The success of many large multinational organisations comes from
the value derived from the intellectual property rights subsisting
in their 'intangibles'. These include well-known brands,
trade secrets, know-how, copyright protected works, inventions,
patents, software and goodwill. All companies own some type of
intangible. The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) views intangibles
as the main driver of value creation.
A consequence of these assets' intangible nature is that
they may provide value to an entity across multiple
jurisdictions, whilst simultaneously defying a simplistic
evaluation of their performance within any one of those
jurisdictions. If the owners, residing in Country A, of a trademark
registered in Country B, profit as a result of their
