Applying structures to avoid paying taxes or to defer taxes.
Change is the only constant! As businesses find new ways to operate, tax authorities are finding new ways to tax. All is fair in the world of taxes! The tax world has been brimming with, news and claims of tax avoidance. Tax has become representative of responsible corporate behaviour, governance and citizenry, and some big…
On April 12, 2016, India’s High Court at Madras delivered a landmark ruling in favor of an anti-avoidance provision (section 94A) introduced in the Indian Income Act, in 2011, to enable the Government to notify for tax purposes foreign tax jurisdictions that do not share tax and other financial information with the tax authority. From…
Massive leaks of information on offshore activity like the Panama Papers illustrate the need for an enhanced global tax cooperation with an improved and deeper interjurisdictional information sharing scheme. In fact, efforts towards reaching a global tax cooperation on obtaining and sharing interjurisdictional information is a longstanding endeavor of the international community, whose origins may…
The dust has not settled yet and there is probably much more to come from this and future leaks. Investigations have started, international cooperation will be key and hopefully those that have not respected the law will be punished. Here below a couple of reflections based on what I read/seen/heard these days between one toy…
A critical appraisal of the EU Switch Over Rule and the Indian Equalization Levy At present, it is unavoidable to recognize that the international tax scenario is in transition to a much more inter-nation equitable system, where the national tax base will be better protected against erosion and profit-shifting corporate manipulations than it was in…
That day in November 2012 It was 5 November 2012 when G20 Finance Ministers asked for a report on the root-causes of Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, by their next meeting in February 2013. Meanwhile, the mainstream press and Parliaments around the world had started to focus on the way MNEs manage their tax affairs….
Introduction On 28 January 2016, the proposal for a council directive laying down rules against tax avoidance practices that directly affect the functioning of the internal market (the so-called ATA-directive) has been published. Article 4 of the ATA directive contains an interest limitation rule that very closely resembles the German interest limitation rule which is…
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…
(about the switch-over clause in the ATA Directive) In order to combat BEPS, the European Commission is proposing to start taxing low taxed non-EU income. That sounds reasonable, but the consequence will be that in the EU, there will be no more profits to tax. This is a proposal that is not necessary to prevent…
Howdy from Prof. Haydon Perryman and I of Texas A&M University. This month we undertake a 2015 review of FATCA’s GIIN registrations relative to 2014. We also include a chart at the end of this post comparing 2014 and 2015 by IGA type, as well as a monthly breakdown of GIIN registrations since list publication began in…
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…
Today the European Commission released its first set of decisions on corporate tax rulings, which it has investigated for over a year. Starbucks Manufacturing EMEA and Fiat Finance and Trade were the first test cases where final decisions have been issued. At this point in time, only press releases are available. Formal decisions will be…
It is the annual Session of the UN Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters. This Ad Hoc subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council of the UN (ECOSOC) is responsible for the UN Model Double Taxation Convention and the Manual for the Negotiation of Bilateral Tax Treaties between Developed and Developing…
