Summary Anthropic recorded a $94.3 billion loss on its convertible notes in the first nine months of 2026, 2.8 times its revenue, because its shares became more valuable.[1][2] Ednaldo Silva, writing on LinkedIn, also pointed out that the loss on the notes was…
Summary The inventory cycle is the recurring alternation between periods when the growth rate of businesses’ stocks of goods rises and periods when it falls. The phase of the cycle affects comparables’ operating margins through inventory accounting. For instance, a…
Summary Before Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2014-15, U.S. generally accepted accounting principles established by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB GAAP) did not contain any guidance on management’s responsibility to evaluate whether there is substantial doubt about an entity’s ability…
ASC 842 and the depreciation of owned property make asset-based comparables under § 482 unreliable: a history, a one-store example, and data on 1,324 registrants.
This is the first post in a series on reported research and development (R&D) as evidence in a transfer pricing functional analysis. In this post, we describe the components of the various R&D amounts. Three definitions determine the reported R&D…
Tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) were collected on goods imported into the United States from February 2025 until February 2026. On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court held that IEEPA did not authorize the tariffs.…
Adjusted taxable income (ATI) is an IRC §163(j) calculation on the federal corporate return that is filer-specific and not reported in public filings. The equation below, derived using Compustat data fields, is the closest approximation to ATI. The sections that…
“A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money.” — with apologies to Everett Dirksen On August 17, 2026, the Wall Street Journal reported that nine large technology companies had approximately $3 trillion of off-balance-sheet commitments, most…
Separate-entity state tax base exposure to international transfer pricing if federal enforcement priorities shift from § 482 to attribution, and why many states already possess the statutory authority to respond without new legislation. “Plurality must never be posited without necessity.”…
Inventory markdown disclosure in U.S. public filings runs on two regulatory tracks. GAAP under ASC 330 sets a narrow trigger that applies only to a defined subset of markdown activity. The SEC overlay under Regulation S-K is where the substantive…
This post builds on my previous one, “Impairment and Amortization: Where Transfer Pricing Analysis Meets GAAP Income Statement Classification,” assuming the Comparable Profits Method (CPM) is chosen under 1.482-1(c) and focusing on building the comparable set. The purpose of this…
Laying the Groundwork This post assumes the Comparable Profits Method (CPM) is the best method under 1.482-1(c), with operating margin after depreciation (OMAD) as the profit indicator (PLI). The key question addressed in this post is whether the operating income…
Transfer pricing industry practice traditionally employs descriptive ratio analysis under 26 CFR 1.482-5(b)(4)(ii) within the Comparable Profits Method (CPM) to determine an arm’s length range.