Nothing Lasts Forever: The U.S. Tax Court’s Decision in Amazon v. Commissioner
When Amazon.com, Inc. and its subsidiaries (collectively “Amazon”) established Amazon Europe Holding Technologies SCS (“AEHT”) in Luxembourg as Amazon’s European headquarters in 2004, AEHT entered a cost-sharing arrangement with Amazon.com, Inc. and its U.S. subsidiaries [...]
Some Great Discussion on Venture Capital Valuations from Academia
Will Gornall of the University of British Colombia and Ilya A. Strebulaev of Stanford recently published a white paper that serves as a great catalyst for discussion of the valuations of VC-backed companies. It is a [...]
It’s the End of the World as We Know It – And We Feel Fine
Many of our clients are driving forces behind changing the world. But is that a good thing? I see more and more angst about the future of the world as automation increases. People worry society [...]
Diving Into the Amazon Transfer Pricing Case
One of the more interesting aspects of the Tax Court’s recent decision in the Amazon transfer pricing case was its treatment of reasonable alternatives. The IRS argued that the US taxpayer had the “reasonable alternative” [...]
The Funny Thing About Stock Options
One of the venture partners at Benchmark, Scott Belsky, recently published a blog post where he seeks to educate prospective employees on how to understand and think about stock options as part of their compensation as [...]
Why Documentation is So Expensive
Preparing global documentation is expensive. Understanding why it is so expensive is the first step in trying to determine how to lower costs while improving quality. Let's start with some simple arithmetic. The OECD local [...]
