substance over form

"And when you have a sham, the tax law always looks at substance over form."

The doctrine is often used in combination with other doctrines, such as substance over form.

Substance over form is critical for reliable financial reporting.

Substance over form is an accounting principle used "to ensure that financial statements give a complete, relevant, and accurate picture of transactions and events".

The case is cited as part of the basis for two legal doctrines: the business purpose doctrine and the doctrine of substance over form.

Artificial arrangements to avoid CFC status may be ignored in some jurisdictions under legislative provisions or court developed law, such as substance over form doctrines.

Cadbury: precedence of substance over form Does the Cadbury Committee's final report offer sufficient protection against the corporate governance debacles of the recent past?

The report calls on boards to 'give precedence to substance over form', in applying and interpreting the code, but it is doubtful whether companies realise that this could be the last chance for self-regulation.

The doctrine of substance over form is essentially that, for Federal tax purposes, a taxpayer is bound by the economic substance of a transaction where the economic substance varies from its legal form.

Specifically, the definition of "control" for consolidation purposes was broadened beyond prescribed ownership interests to embrace control over an entity's financial and operating policies, making use of the notion of "substance over form" in determining the existence of a controlled entity.

Also ownership is not the measure of whether something is an asset or not - substance over form - the case of leasing is a good example of how in contemporary accounting practice the idea of legal ownership is no longer seen as vital.

He adopted the substance over form approach, or the substantial effects doctrine, in that there are many factors to be considered, for example, the indirectness of the tax, its effect on the cost of goods and its proximity to the production or distribution of the goods.

He served as deputy minister of rites for two years, and the examinees that he selected as top scorers were the ones that he felt to have valued substance over form, and it was said because of his policy, those who tried influence examination results decreased.

However, various tax professionals opposed the changes, arguing that the threshold for defining an extraordinary transaction was far too low, and that existing internal revenue regulations, as well as common law doctrines such as the principle of substance over form and the step transaction doctrine, were already sufficient to combat any abuses of the check-the-box rules.