I read an article looks at the lack of depreciation deductions for goodwill, business buyers typically allocated minimal purchase price to this asset. Buyers instead apportioned their costs to depreciable assets like customer lists. The article proposes several corrections to the ongoing goodwill difficulties. Moreover, the foreign sourcing of intangibles gains should be keyed to the foreign taxation of such gains rather than the presence of goodwill.

The tax bill counteracted taxpayer goodwill hunting on foreign-subsidiary transfers through a simple change to a Tax Code definition. In the same spirit, another easy definitional fix would just remove trademarks. The section's harsh contingent-payment rules then would apply to just the real Congressional target: split-interest franchises. In this regard, the limited nature of a franchise transfer helps to justify capital gains override. In addition, franchises tend to subsume all business goodwill, thereby avoiding the troublesome allocation issues imbedded in non-franchise trademark transfers. Such trademark deletion also would address unnecessary discontinuities and interpretative issues, especially regarding trademark-litigation proceeds.

what is your thought on this approach ? Do you agree or disagree with this why , why or why not ?