“A camel is an animal designed by a committee” – Anonymous In launching the BEPS programme in 2013, the OECD warned that replacement of the current consensus-based framework by unilateral measures, could lead to global tax chaos marked by the massive re-emergence of double taxation (OECD: Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (2013))….

Publication of text of The Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS Convention) by the OECD on 24 November 2016 is one of the key milestones in the OECD/G20 Project to tackle Base Erosion and Profit Shifting. The BEPS Convention will be open for signature from…

This has been an interesting session and for those who were not there, I am sure that the essence is reported elsewhere in the international tax press.  The deliberations lead me to the following additional thoughts. 1. As a remedy for even starting disputes: tax authorities should not take positions in making adjustments that they…

On June 27, 2016 the EU Commission published the long awaited Starbucks State Aid decision (see here).  The EU Commission’s decision challenges the outcome of the Advanced Pricing Agreement (APA) between the Netherlands Tax Authority (Tax Authority) and Starbucks Manufacturing BV (SMBV), a wholly owned and controlled coffee roasting operation. Below is the Part I…

1. The Tendency We live in a time where the media, politicians, NGOs and activists increasingly are preoccupied with international tax matters. A simultaneous preoccupation is observed among the OECD, G20, EU countries and most other developed countries alike. This has led to continuously increasing regulatory requirements and strengthened legislation towards companies. The tendency is…

In highly dramatic fashion the French tax authorities and IT specialists raided Google’s headquarters and McDonalds. I don’t own Google stock. I’m not in favor of Google’s near monopoly on search (though it has accomplished this by offering a really great product and (free) work tools that make my life much easier).  I don’t eat…

The OECD BEPS project was kicked off by the observation that the interaction of domestic tax systems sometimes leads to an overlap, resulting in double taxation as well as gaps, which result in an item of income not being taxed anywhere, thus resulting in so called “double non-taxation”. Co-operation among countries historically addressed double taxation…

On January 15, 2016, in a joint (bi-partisan) letter of Senate Finance Committee Republicans and Democrats to US Treasury, one that will certainly be of interest to our friends at Wolters Kluwer (a Netherlands parent multinational enterprise), the Senate Finance Committee members encouraged Treasury to use a tit-for-tat strategy against the EU Commission.  The letter stated that…

In many respects a multilateral tax treaty represents an utopian view of international tax law: a wide consensus among nation states to submit themselves to a common set of rules that govern the levying of taxes across national boundaries. While there have been several examples of attempts at multilateral double taxation treaties, such as the…

On August 12, 2015 the IRS released two final revenue procedures impacting the U.S. transfer pricing regime.  Revenue Procedure 2015-40 concerns the protocols and procedures for requesting assistance of the U.S. competent authority (CA) and the other, Revenue Procedure 2015-41, the protocols and procedures for seeking an Advance Pricing Agreement with the IRS.[1] In 2013…

Let’s go back a few weeks, to March 18, 2015. The EU Commission announces its much heralded Tax Transparency package. The package contains a surprise element: the link to the Code of Conduct Report of 1999. To refresh memories: this report, lead by a UK national, contained 66 harmful tax measures. The 66 could be…

The OECD Public Discussion Draft on BEPS Action 14 (released on 18 December 2014) covers extensively dispute resolution mechanisms and ways to make them more effective. The subject has grown in importance as Mutual Agreement Procedures (“MAP”) have increased significantly especially on transfer pricing cross border adjustments. In this context, the BEPS Discussion Draft states…