Model tax treaties do matter. The OECD and UN Models constitute precedent books with standard clauses that contracting states can follow or adapt to suit their particular circumstances. The US Model treaty, in contrast, is a statement of intent. The preamble to the revised 2016 US Model Income Tax Convention released by the US Treasury…

(“Every in-house tax department should have their own IT/Financial systems capacity” – JHM, TP Minds London, 2015.) The unexpected benefit from country by reporting (“CbyC”) reporting is that tax departments may learn something about their own groups’ financial systems. What is there to learn? If you are in-house, answer these four questions: 1. Do you…

Interest and penalty regimes place a high premium on correctly identifying the existence of a permanent establishment in the territory of a state. The failure to do so often means that there is no reporting to the tax administration by the foreign enterprise by way of registration or filing of returns. This is particularly true…

The Spanish National Court has recently ruled (case no. 182/2012) that a Spanish affiliate of Dell that sold Dell computers in Spain under a commissionaire agreement with Dell Ireland constituted a permanent establishment of the Irish group sales company. The decision is in line with earlier Spanish Supreme Court Decisions in Roche Vitamins Europe SA…

Written by Associate Professor, PhD, Michael Tell, Department of Law, Copenhagen Business School and Technical Advisor, CORIT Advisory. Darwin’s theory of evolution states that complex creatures evolve from more simplistic ancestors, while natural selection ensures that only the fittest survive and the others become evolutionary “dead-ends”. The aim of this blog contribution is to address…

The longstanding view on application of the arm’s length principle is that it is generally based on a comparison of the conditions in a controlled transaction with the conditions in transactions between independent enterprises. A transaction, for this purpose, almost always involves a contract. This is because a contract, whether made in writing, orally or…

In order to close this cycle of dissertations about non-discrimination in International Tax Law, we will finish by talking about the specific case of the Andean Countries. Decision 578 of the Andean Community – which is aimed at avoiding the double taxation of income and wealth taxes for taxpayers in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador…

So what were the other discussions at the UN from 19 to 23 October this year?  One of the main topics is the continuing work on a withholding tax on technical services.  The reason for developing countries is simple: it is a simple, effective way to protect the local tax base and prevent BEPS through…

An open door for emerging economies or the beginning of the end in international tax co-ordination In an article published earlier this year,[1. Teijeiro, Opening the Pandora’s Box in the International Tax Field (First Part), Tax Planning International Review, volume 42, #4 (April 2015), p. 4 ss.] I alerted on the instability of the current world tax…

As from the first BEPS proposals with respect to intangibles, it has been considered that the Arm’s Length Standard (“ALS”) is “slowly but surely being relegated to the back seat” of the OECD Guidelines.[1. R. Robillard, BEPS: Is the OECD Now at the Gates of Global Formulary Apportionment?, 43 Intertax 447, at 447.] Indeed, some…

Everyone concerned with international taxation awaits the publication of the final package of BEPS measures by the OECD on Monday 5 October 2015. While the BEPS programme addresses disparities between national tax systems and features of international tax rules that have allowed some multinational companies to enjoy very low effective corporate tax rates, it is…

In a globalized economy, financial crimes –including tax crimes– threaten the strategic, political and economic interest of developed and developing countries as well, and undermine confidence in the global financial system. The traditional perception was that tax evasion, even of a criminal nature, was somehow different from money laundering and other financial crimes (e.g., corruption),…