GILTI as charged (3rd booking): the 2020 high-tax exception regs

Doug McHoney (PwC's US International Tax Services (ITS) Leader) and Elizabeth Nelson (ITS Partner in PwC's Washington National Tax Services) discuss the recently-issued final and proposed high-tax exception regulations under the global intangible low-taxed income (GILTI) and subpart F income regimes. Doug and Elizabeth unpack: the background and history of the high-tax exception; the similarities and differences between the previously proposed high-tax exception regulations and the final high-tax exception regulations; how the regulations interact with net operating losses (NOLs) and the base erosion and anti-abuse tax (BEAT); what happened to QBUs, what is a 'tested unit,' and how the aggregation rules apply to tested units; the substance and implications of the 'consistency rule,' how the proposed regulations treat expense apportionment and negative interest rates; the new documentation requirements and anti-abuse rules contained in the regulations; and the continued importance of modeling due to the high-tax exception's interaction with many other TCJA provisions. Doug and Elizabeth also 'put a fork' in the notion that GILTI is a minimum tax and identify three categories of multinational taxpayers that may want to elect the high-tax exception.