On 6 March 2018 the Grand Chamber of the CJEU ruled in the Achmea decision (C-284/16) that the bilateral investment treaty (BIT) between The Netherlands and the Slovak Republic violated EU law because it allowed an arbitral tribunal to interpret provisions of EU law in a dispute between investors and (Member) States, while such interpretation…
Increased focus on taxation of cross-border situations involving both individuals and companies is one of the key features of the post-BEPS international tax environment. One central aspect of this is increased administrative cooperation between tax administrations in exchange of information and assistance in recovery of taxes. Territoriality principle Recent UK decisions have emphasised the need…
Introduction The financial crisis had made multinational enterprises (MNE) look inward for funding options, as external sources of capital were not readily available. Among various intra group-financing possibilities, cash pooling among group members is undoubtedly one of the most important tools to facilitate cash management. Even though tax authorities recognize the commercial rationale of such…
On 21 March, the European Commission will publish a proposal for a two-fold strategy to reform the taxation of digital companies like Google and Facebook. The most recent draft of the proposal that has been distributed on March 15 suggests that one should lower one’s expectations. Last autumn, a group of EU Finance Ministers propelled…
The Spanish Supreme Court recently issued (February 19, Spanish version here) a long awaited judgment confirming that the Spanish inheritance tax legal framework breaches the free movement of capital when taxing non-EU residents on Spanish assets received through inheritance. The origin of this discrimination is the Spanish regional inheritance taxation system, under which Spanish regions…
Non-inclusion of the Swiss-United Kingdom income tax treaty in the list of Covered Tax Agreements of both the states on signing the BEPS MLI on 7 June 2017 surprised some observers. This evident gap between two OECD member countries was quickly filled by a protocol to the Swiss-United Kingdom treaty concluded on 30 November 2017….
On February 1, 2018, Indian Finance Minister presented the country’s latest Budget, which contains an international tax proposal that may not send a positive message to foreign companies doing business with India. The Budget proposes to amend the definition of “business connection” stipulated in Explanation 2 to section 9(1)(i) of the Income Tax (IT) Act…
At the current stage, it is difficult to predict a potential application of the principal purposes test (PPT) and its outcome since it has not entered into force in the 72 Signatories of the Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (MLI). However, assuming that this happens…
It is 30 December and 2 MNEs contact me about my YouTube videos on uploading Country by Country Reports (CbCRs); they need help. In the week of New Year, I helped taxpayers in Bermuda, Belgium, Britain (for B’s), Cyprus, China, Colombia (for C’s) and then some more down the alphabet (not Zimbabwe). I remembered how…
Among the main issues the BEPS project intends to address is the phenomenon of “double non-taxation”. It is a term that is used quite frequently nowadays; primarily in order to describe situations that are considered as problematic from a policy perspective. However, not all situations where something remains untaxed provoke public outrage. As, for example,…
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…
In mid-November, the Republican majority in the US House of Representatives has passed its version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act bill. Last Saturday, the Senate has followed suit and has cast a 51:49 approval vote on the parallel tax reform bill introduced by its Republican members. Admittedly, it is still not entirely clear…
Recently, a special Mexican Circuit Court (“the Court”) issued a ruling regarding the interpretation of an international convention (the North American Free Trade Agreement or “NAFTA”) which may signal broader guidance for the interpretation of treaties in Mexico. The case was ruled in order to resolve conflicting decisions by two Circuit Courts, as a result…
Taxation of the digital economy featured in discussion on the implementation of the OECD/G20 BEPS action items at the annual conference of the Canadian Tax Foundation in Toronto on 21 November 2017. Several speakers note that no generally accepted solution had been found to address the impact of the digitalisation of the global economy on…
