IRS Statement (2-6-18)

 

IRS Statement (2-6-18)

IRS officials today announced an increase in the fee taxpayers pay to request a unilateral or bilateral advance pricing agreement (APA).

Fees for APAs are currently set forth in the Appendix of Rev. Proc. 2015-41. They will increase in a two-stage process. For APA requests filed after June 30, 2018, the fees will increase as follows: $86,750 for new APAs; $48,500 for renewal APAs; $42,000 for small case APAs; and $17,750 for amendments to APAs. For APA requests filed after December 31, 2018, the fees will increase to the following amounts: $113,500 for new APAs; $62,000 for renewal APAs; $54,000 for small case APAs; and $23,000 for amendments.

In all other respects, the provisions of the Appendix (specifically, section 3, regarding user fees) remain unchanged.

APAs are agreements between the IRS and multinational enterprises to address transfer pricing issues that arise from international commerce between related parties. With an agreement on the prospective tax treatment of such commerce, the taxpayer gets greater certainty over its U.S. tax liability.

By law, federal agencies are required to charge a user fee to recover the cost of providing certain services to the public that confer a special benefit to the recipient. Agencies must review these fees to determine whether they are recovering the cost of providing these services. Today's announcement results from the effort to bring this amount closer to full cost. APA fees were last adjusted in 2015.