There are a lot of opinions on multinationals and their tax practices. One conventional perception is that multinationals have a general tax advantage over their domestic competitors as their international operations allow for substantial tax management to minimize the corporate tax burden at group level. A number of tax policy projects are in process and…

This contribution is aimed at surveying the interaction and reciprocal influence between the OECD-G20 BEPS Action Plan (the BEPS Plan), on one hand, and contemporary tax developments occurred in the Latin American (LATAM) region, particularly those geared to counteract base eroding and profit shifting moves by multinational enterprises (MNEs), on the other. At first glance,…

The ministers signed a Supplementary Agreement (SA) amending the French-German Double Taxation Convention. The SA simplifies the taxation for pensioners by attributing the exclusive taxing right for pension payments from statutory social insurance to the resident state of the beneficiary of these payments. In return Germany and France agreed to mutually sustain the other side’s…

Reform Path Forward for China’s Tax Law Reform   The observation on the current fiscal and tax system helps China to improve and execute a profound tax system to realize goals proposed in The Decision as well as tackling new challenges arising therefrom. Fiscal and tax policies do not stand alone and must follow the…

After the first post on BEPS, I decided to go laterally and approach an issue that may resonate to many tax practitioners but unfortunately is not so widely discussed perhaps because of its interdisciplinary impacts – what are the consequences and limits for this “rush” towards massification of tax information data retrieval and exchange. We…

It is well known that case law from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) imposes limitations on the application of anti-avoidance rules by Member States. Accordingly, it is of vital importance that recommendations made under the OECD project on base erosion on profit shifting (the BEPS project), are adaptable, where necessary, to enable Member States…

In July 2013, the OECD published its Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, aimed at ensuring the coherence of corporate income taxation at the international level. Action 3 of the Plan stressed the need to address base erosion and profit shifting through CFC rules, since then existing domestic CFC rules do not always…

One of the most polemical tax measures in Colombia’s recent taxation history has undoubtedly been the introduction of the Financial Transactions Tax (FTT). Loved by the public administration but hated by the taxpayers, this tax highlights the very difficult problem of whether it is possible to combine both a high degree of efficiency and an…

In my previous post, I discussed the budget law related reform updates in China. This post continues such discussion by reviewing issues of China’s tax administration and transfer payment systems. Tax Administration and Collection  China’s tax administration and collection system is unique in two ways. First, over 70% of the tax revenue is generated through…

I ”grew up” believing that publications of the OECD are the bibles of taxation.  They are scientific master pieces, tell you what to do and, like other holy books, are often open for multiple interpretations.  My multiple contacts with the OECD over several years strongly nuanced that view. First, there were the invitations to congresses:…

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste”, Rahm Emanuel, Chicago Mayor (and former Obama White House chief-of-staff) Fundamental reforms are always controversial and the G20/OECD hard-pressed Base Erosion Profit Shifting project is no exception to this rule. They shake with presumed principles, they provoke a wide debate, they alarm businesses if they…

The taxation of MNEs is widely debated. This is even more so with respect to MNE’s tax planning arrangements. Increasingly, however, it seems that politicians and the media are not paying enough attention to facts in the debate. Recently we have witnessed examples in my home country of this tendency. These examples are the reason…

On 11 February 2015 a US District Court found that the US Internal Revenue Service disclosed false tax return information to the Japanese National Tax Administration contrary to the Japan-US tax treaty in Aloe Vera of America Incorporated, et al. v. United States of America (Case No. CV-99-01794-PHX-JAT). The IRS had supplied information showing a…