v3.22.2.2
Income Taxes
9 Months Ended
Oct. 01, 2022
Income Tax Disclosure [Abstract]  
Income Taxes INCOME TAXES
The effective tax rates were as follows:
Three Months EndedNine Months Ended
October 1, 2022October 2, 2021October 1, 2022October 2, 2021
(1,377.1)%113.9 %5.3 %165.5 %

The effective tax rate on the pre-tax loss for the three months ended October 1, 2022, increased compared to the effective tax rate on the pre-tax income for the three months ended October 2, 2021, primarily due to the Omega arbitration pre-tax income received in the prior year, which was largely non-taxable. The increase in the effective tax rate was offset, in part, by the income tax benefit associated with legal entity restructuring recognized for the three months ended October 1, 2022, and the income tax expense on the settlement of the Irish Notice of Assessment recognized in the prior year. The effective tax rate for this period differs from the statutory income tax rate of 12.5% mainly due to benefits on pre-tax losses not realized.

The effective tax rate on the pre-tax loss for the nine months ended October 1, 2022, decreased compared to the effective tax rate on the pre-tax income for the nine months ended October 2, 2021, primarily due to the income tax expense on the settlement of the Irish Notice of Assessment recognized in the prior year. The decrease in the effective tax rate was offset, in part, by the Omega arbitration pre-tax income received in the prior year, which was largely non-taxable and the tax benefit of the loss on sale of our Latin American businesses in 2022. The effective tax rate for this period differs from the statutory income tax rate of 12.5% mainly due to non-deductible acquisition costs related to the HRA Pharma acquisition, as well as benefits on pre-tax losses not realized.

Internal Revenue Service Audits of Perrigo Company, a U.S. Subsidiary

Perrigo Company, our U.S. subsidiary ("Perrigo U.S."), is engaged in a series of tax disputes in the U.S. relating primarily to transfer pricing adjustments including income in connection with the purchase, distribution, and sale of store-brand OTC pharmaceutical products in the United States, including the generic heartburn medication omeprazole. On August 27, 2014, we received a statutory notice of deficiency from the IRS relating to our fiscal tax years ended June 27, 2009, and June 26, 2010 (the “2009 tax year” and “2010 tax year”, respectively). On April 20, 2017, we received a statutory notice of deficiency from the IRS for the years ended June 25, 2011 and June 30, 2012 (the “2011 tax year” and “2012 tax year”, respectively). Specifically, both statutory notices proposed adjustments related to the offshore reporting of profits on sales of omeprazole in the United States resulting from the assignment of an omeprazole distribution contract to an Israeli affiliate. In addition to the transfer pricing adjustments, which applied to all four tax years, the statutory notice of deficiency for the 2011 and 2012 tax years included adjustments requiring the capitalization and amortization of certain legal expenses that were deducted when paid or incurred in defending against certain patent infringement lawsuits related to ANDAs filed with a Paragraph IV Certification.

We do not agree with the audit adjustments proposed by the IRS in either of the notices of deficiency. We paid the assessed amounts of tax, interest, and penalties set forth in the statutory notices and timely filed claims for refund on June 11, 2015 for the 2009 and 2010 tax years, and on June 7, 2017, for the 2011 and 2012 tax years. On August 15, 2017, following disallowance of such refund claims, we timely filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan seeking refunds of tax, interest, and penalties of $27.5 million for the 2009 tax year, $41.8 million for the 2010 tax year, $40.1 million for the 2011 tax year, and $24.7 million for the 2012 tax year, for a total of $134.1 million, plus statutory overpayment interest thereon from the dates of payment. The amounts sought in the complaint for the 2009 and 2010 tax years were recorded as deferred charges in Other non-current assets on our balance sheet during the three months ended March 28, 2015, and the amounts sought in the complaint for the 2011 and 2012 tax years were recorded as deferred charges in Other non-current assets on our balance sheet during the three months ended July 1, 2017.

A bench trial was held during the period May 25, 2021 to June 7, 2021 for the refund case in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan. The total amount of cumulative deferred charge that we are seeking to receive in this litigation is approximately $111.6 million, which reflects the impact of conceding that Perrigo U.S. should have received a 5.24% royalty on all omeprazole sales. That concession was previously paid
and is the subject of the above refund claims. The issues outlined in the statutory notices of deficiency described above are continuing in nature, and the IRS will likely carry forward the adjustments set forth therein as long as the drug is sold, in the case of the omeprazole issue, and for all post-2012 Paragraph IV filings that trigger patent infringement suits, in the case of the ANDA issue. On April 30, 2021, we filed a Notice of New Authority in our refund case in the Western District of Michigan alerting the court to a United States Tax Court decision in Mylan v. Comm'r that ruled in favor of the taxpayer on nearly identical ANDA issues as we have before the court. Post-trial briefings were completed on September 24, 2021 and the case is now fully submitted for the court's decision. On January 28, 2022, the IRS filed a Notice of Appeal with the United States Court of Appeals of the Third Circuit to appeal the United States Tax Court's decision in Mylan v. Comm'r. On August 22, 2022, the parties filed a Notice of New Authority in the refund case alerting the court to a United States Court of Federal Claims decision in Actavis Laboratories v. United States that also ruled in favor of the taxpayer on the ANDA issues.

On January 13, 2021, the IRS issued a 30-day letter and Revenue Agent's Report ("RAR") with respect to its audit of our fiscal tax years ended June 29, 2013, June 28, 2014, and June 27, 2015. The 30-day letter proposed, among other modifications, transfer pricing adjustments in connection with the distribution of omeprazole in the aggregate amount of $141.6 million and ANDA-related adjustments in the aggregate amount of $21.9 million. The 30-day letter also set forth adjustments described in the next two paragraphs. We timely filed a protest to the 30-day letter for those additional adjustments but noting that due to the pending refund litigation described above, IRS Appeals would not consider the merits of the omeprazole or ANDA matters. We believe that we should prevail on the merits on both carryforward issues and have reserved for taxes and interest payable on the 5.24% deemed royalty on omeprazole through the tax year ended December 31, 2018. Beginning with the tax year ended December 31, 2019, we began reporting income commensurate with the 5.24% deemed royalty. We have not reserved for the ANDA-related issue described above. While we believe we should prevail on the merits of this case, the outcome remains uncertain. If our litigation position on the omeprazole issue is not sustained, the outcome for the 2009–2012 tax years could range from a reduction in the refund amount to denial of any refund. In addition, we expect that the outcome of the refund litigation could effectively bind future tax years. In that event, an adverse ruling on the omeprazole issue could have a material impact on subsequent periods, with additional tax liability in the range of $24.0 million to $112.0 million, not including interest and any applicable penalties.

The 30-day letter for the 2013-2015 tax years also proposed to reduce Perrigo U.S.'s deductible interest expense for the 2014 tax year and the 2015 tax year on $7.5 billion in certain intercompany debts owed by it to Perrigo Company plc. The debts were incurred in connection with the Elan merger transaction in 2013. On May 7, 2020, the IRS issued a NOPA capping the interest rate on the debts for U.S. federal tax purposes at 130.0% of the Applicable Federal Rate ("AFR") (a blended rate reduction of 4.0% per annum) on the stated ground that the loans were not negotiated on an arms-length basis. The NOPA proposes a reduction in gross interest expense of approximately $414.7 million for tax years 2014 and 2015. On January 13, 2021, we received a RAR, together with the 30-day letter, requiring our filing of a written protest to request IRS Appeals consideration. The protest was timely filed with the IRS on February 26, 2021. On January 20, 2022, the IRS responded to our protest with its rebuttal in which it revised its position on this interest rate issue by reasserting that implicit parental support considerations are necessary to determine the arm's length interest rates and proposed revised interest rates that are higher than the interest rates proposed under its 130.0% of AFR assertion. The blended interest rate proposed by the IRS rebuttal is 4.36%, an increase from the blended interest rate in the RAR of 2.57% but lower than the stated blended interest rate of the loans of 6.8%.We will pursue all available administrative and judicial remedies necessary to defend the deductibility of the interest expense on this indebtedness. If the IRS were to prevail in its revised proposed adjustment, we estimate an increase in tax expense of approximately $72.9 million, excluding interest and penalties, for fiscal years ended June 28, 2014 through June 27, 2015. In addition, we expect the IRS to seek similar adjustments for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2015 through December 31, 2018 with potential section 163(j) carryover impacts beyond December 2018. If those further adjustments were sustained, based on preliminary calculations and subject to further analysis, our current best estimate is that the additional tax expense would not exceed $58.5 million, excluding interest and penalties. No further adjustments beyond this period are expected. We strongly disagree with the IRS position and we will pursue all available administrative and judicial remedies necessary. A preliminary IRS Appeals conference is scheduled for the interest rate issue in November 2022. At this stage we are unable to estimate additional liability, if any, associated with this matter.

In addition, the 30-day letter for the 2013-2015 tax years expanded on a NOPA issued on December 11, 2019 and proposed to disallow reductions to gross sales income on the sale of prescription products to wholesalers for accrued wholesale customer pipeline chargebacks where the prescription products were not re-sold by such wholesalers to covered retailers by the end of the tax year. The NOPA asserts that the reduction of gross sales income of such chargebacks is an impermissible method of accounting and proposed a change in accounting
method that would defer the reduction in gross sales income until the year the prescription products were re-sold to covered retailers. The NOPA proposes an increase in sales revenue of approximately $99.5 million for the 2013-2015 tax years. We filed a protest on February 26, 2021 to request IRS Appeals consideration. On January 20, 2022, the IRS responded to our protest with its rebuttal and reiterated the NOPA's position that the accrued chargebacks are not currently deductible in the tax year accrued because all events have not occurred to establish the fact of the liability in the year deducted. A meeting to discuss this issue with IRS Appeals was held on October 12, 2022. We reached an agreement in principle with IRS Appeals, and both parties are now evaluating the amount of the payment that such agreement would require. Currently, we estimate that the settlement payment will be approximately $8.0 million, which would be fully covered by reserves for this issue. The settlement would resolve not only the 2013-2015 tax years but all of the remaining tax years through 2021, the last tax year with chargebacks due to the sale of the RX business in July 2021.

On December 2, 2021, the IRS commenced an audit of our federal income tax returns for the tax years ended December 31, 2015, through December 31, 2019.

Internal Revenue Service Audit of Athena Neurosciences, Inc., a U.S. Subsidiary    

On April 26, 2019, we received a revised NOPA from the IRS regarding transfer pricing positions related to the IRS audit of Athena Neurosciences, LLC ("Athena") for the years ended December 31, 2011, December 31, 2012, and December 31, 2013. The NOPA carries forward the IRS's theory from its 2017 draft NOPA that when Elan took over the future funding of Athena's in-process research and development after acquiring Athena in 1996, Elan should have paid a substantially higher royalty rate for the right to exploit Athena’s intellectual property in various developmental products, including the Multiple Sclerosis drug Tysabri, rather than rates based on transfer pricing documentation prepared by Elan's external tax advisors. The NOPA proposes a payment of $843.0 million, which represents additional tax based on imputing royalty income to Athena using a 24.7% royalty rate derived by the IRS and a 40.0% accuracy-related penalty. This amount excludes consideration of offsetting tax attributes and any potential interest that may be imposed. We strongly disagree with the IRS position. On December 22, 2016, we also received a NOPA for these years denying the deductibility of settlement costs incurred in 2011 by Athena's parent company Elan Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ("EPI") related to illegal marketing of Zonegran by EPI's employees in the United States raised in a Qui Tam action under the U.S. False Claims Act. We strongly disagree with the IRS' position on this issue as well. Because we believe that any concession on these issues in Appeals would be contrary to our evaluation of the issues and to avoid double taxation of the same income in the United States and Ireland, we pursued our remedies under the Mutual Agreement Procedure ("MAP") of the U.S.-Ireland Income Tax Treaty to alleviate double taxation. On April 21 and 23, 2020, we filed requests for Competent Authority Assistance with the IRS and Irish Revenue on the Tysabri royalty issue, and those MAP applications were accepted. On October 20, 2020, we amended our requests for Competent Authority Assistance to include the Zonegran issue and these supplemental requests were also accepted. On May 6, 2021, we had our opening conference with the IRS. A follow-up conference was held with the IRS on December 13, 2021 and we discussed our submission, which continues to be reviewed by the IRS. Our opening conference with Irish Revenue was held on July 23, 2021 and we discussed our submission, which continues to be reviewed by Irish Revenue. The U.S. and Irish Competent Authorities will seek to achieve a resolution that avoids double taxation on both the Tysabri royalty and Zonegran issues.

No payment of the additional amounts is required until these two matters are resolved with finality under the treaty, or any additional administrative or judicial process if treaty negotiations are unsuccessful.
    
Irish Revenue Audit of Fiscal Years Ended December 31, 2012 and December 31, 2013

On November 29, 2018, Irish Revenue issued a Notice of Amended Assessment (“NoA”) for the tax year ended December 31, 2013, related to the tax treatment of the 2013 sale of the Tysabri® intellectual property and related assets to Biogen Idec by Elan Pharma. On September 29, 2021, Elan reached an agreement with Irish Revenue providing for full and final settlement of the NoA on the following terms: (i) on a 'without prejudice basis' and, for purposes of the settlement, an alternative basis of taxation was applied, (ii) Irish Revenue to take no further action in relation to the NoA or any Tysabri related income or transactions, (iii) no interest or penalties applied, (iv) a total tax of €297.0 million charged as full and final settlement of all liabilities arising from the sale of the Tysabri patents for the fiscal years 2013 to 2021, and (v) after Irish Revenue credited taxes already paid and certain unused research and development ("R&D") credits against the €297.0 million charged settlement amount, the total cash payment of €266.1 million, $307.5 million as of the date of payment, was made on October 5, 2021. We recorded the payment as a component of income tax expense on the Consolidated Statements of Operations in the third quarter of 2021.

Israel Tax Authority Audit of Fiscal Year Ended June 27, 2015 and Calendar Years Ended December 31, 2015 through December 31, 2019

On December 29, 2020, we received a Stage A assessment from the Israel Tax Authority ("ITA") for the tax years ended December 31, 2015 through December 31, 2017 relating to attribution of intangible income to Israel, income qualifying for a lower preferential rate of tax, exemption from capital gains tax, and deduction of certain settlement payments. Through negotiations with the ITA, we resolved the audit by agreeing to add tax years ended December 31, 2018 and December 31, 2019 to the audit. Further, the agreement with the ITA required us to pay $19.0 million, after offset of refunds of $17.2 million, for the five taxable years. In addition, we paid $12.5 million to resolve a tax liability indemnity for the tax year ended December 31, 2017 relating to Perrigo API Ltd, which we disposed of in December 2017.

As a result of the settlement with the ITA, we reduced our liability recorded for uncertain tax positions by $38.3 million including interest.

    Although we believe that our tax estimates are reasonable and that we prepare our tax filings in accordance with all applicable tax laws, the final determination with respect to any tax audit and any related litigation could be materially different from our estimates or from our historical income tax provisions and accruals. The results of an audit or litigation could have a material effect on operating results and/or cash flows in the periods for which that determination is made. In addition, future period earnings may be adversely impacted by litigation costs, settlements, penalties, and/or interest assessments.
    
Based on the final resolution of tax examinations, judicial or administrative proceedings, changes in facts or law, expirations of statute of limitations in specific jurisdictions or other resolutions of, or changes in, tax positions - one or more of which may occur within the next twelve months - it is reasonably possible that unrecognized tax benefits for certain tax positions taken on previously filed tax returns may change materially from those recorded as of October 1, 2022. However, we are not able to estimate a reasonably possible range of how these events may impact our unrecognized tax benefits in the next twelve months.