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When a US company transfers ownership for a pending patent application via an assignment to a company outside the US, say for 1 Dollar, are there any tax implications to worry about?
As for the 1 Dollar, I suppose at the pending stage, the argument can be made that the patent application has no substantial value yet and is potentially worthless (and potentially rejected).
This won’t be less than $1 but could be considerably more. The IRS will accept a reasonable valuation of the asset based on reasonable assumptions. Factors involved would include the likelihood of a successful application, the cost of commercialising it and the expected revenue, all assessed on a forward looking basis (i.e. without the benefit of hindsight).
As in many situations like this, the answer to the question can be easily found if another, preliminary question is asked: why?
Assuming that, economically, the fair market value of the transferred asset (whatever it is) is $1,000 and it was transferred for only $1 - there must be some reason why this was done that way, as opposed to a sale for $1,000, which is what you would expect if the transaction was done at arm's length:
Maybe the transferree is a charity and the the transfer was done for charitable purposes: that's one possible tax treatment.
Maybe the the transferor received stock/equity in the transferre: that's another.
Maybe the transferee is owned by a relative of the transferor and it was done as a gift: yet another.
Or there may have been some other, unstated, reason (repayment of debt?).
So, find out the reason and the tax treatment will suggest itself.
