The relationship between treaties and domestic tax law ought to be straightforward. The pacta servanda sunt principle expressed in articles 26 and 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties itself implies that treaty obligations must be upheld notwithstanding domestic law. A variety of constitutional arrangements around the world mean that there is…

Introduction Except for the unprecedented health crisis, the COVID-19 spread has generated the biggest economic and financial shock of the century across markets and cross-borders.[1] The preventive and reactive mechanisms developed by national governments and international and supranational organizations to respond to the crisis give in turn rise to a plethora of tax questions. It…

In last month’s blog I promised to address the treaty aspects of  Davies and Others v HMRC [2020] UKUT 67 (TCC). The case concerned UK resident individuals who each took out a life insurance policy with a Bermuda insurer under which their entitlements were linked to a Mauritian company that developed land in the UK….

The Canadian Federal Court of Appeal has upheld the Tax Court of Canada decision in Canada v. Alta Energy Luxembourg S.A.R.L., 2020 FCA 43 (CanLII).   The case is of some significance because the Canadian Revenue Agency (“CRA”) sought to apply the Canadian domestic general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR) in order to deny treaty relief. The…

Can an Indian subsidiary be said to be the permanent establishment of its overseas parent on the ground that it is a virtual projection of the latter even if the tests explicitly stipulated in the permanent establishment Article of a tax treaty are not met? This was one of the main questions that recently came…

Much has been said and written globally about Google’s tax affairs. The way the company carries on its business operations and how much tax it pays on income generated from such operations has been a subject of recent, heated debate in both France and the UK. In India too, international tax experts are discussing an…

Controlled Foreign Corporation rules are a hot issue in Europe and beyond. Last year, EU countries agreed to have national CFC rules in force by 2019. The Big Four – Germany, France, Italy and Spain – need to make minor changes only to their existing rules. (Like in the accountancy profession, there used to be…

More and more soccer players hit the newspapers because they are not just creative in the soccer stadiums but also in dealing with their tax returns. Recently we have seen the press reporting on Lionel Messi and Christiano Ronaldo. Let I make instantly clear to you that I have no knowledge at all about soccer…

General On February 9, 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’) rendered its decision in the X v Staatssecretaris van Financiën (‘X’). The case concerned the possibility of applying the Schumacker doctrine to a non-resident taxpayer in the situation where he earned almost all his income not in one but in several…

Introduction and EU law applicable On 8 March 2017 the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereafter “CJ”) delivered its decision in the Case C-448/15, Wereldhave, dealing with the interpretation of the “subject to tax” requirement provided for the application of the Parent-Subsidiary Directive (both Directive 90/435/EEC and Directive 2011/96/EU). Under article 1(1) of Directive…

Lower energy cost is a major factor for U.S. manufacturers … to be able to offer on par production costs to China, and 10 percent to 20 percent lower costs than European manufacture. I’ve been remiss in my blogging since the surprise victory of the presidential election.  It is not because I think the apocalypse…

There are several misconceptions in international taxation, some of them more pervasive than others.  Many are often repeated by speakers at tax conferences without being contradicted. The first is the so-called interest deduction bias.  It is not the main topic of this blog, but I will deal with it by way of introduction. The Interest…

On September 14th, 2016, the Brazilian Federal Revenue Service (“RFB”) published the Normative Instruction RFB No. 1,658/2016, which included legal entities incorporated as holding companies in Austria in the list of privileged fiscal regimes. Although the list mentions “legal entities incorporated in the form of holding company“, the wording is imprecise, because the administration of…