“The judge who always likes the results he reaches is a bad judge,” Justice Antonin Scalia had famously said. A recent ruling delivered by the Bengaluru Bench of the Indian Income Tax Tribunal in ABB FZ-LLC vs. Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax (pronounced on June 21, 2017) is a case in point. In what was a…
The objective of the EU Merger Directive (“MD”) is to remove tax obstacles to cross-border restructuring operations while safeguarding the financial interests of the Member States.[1] In aligning these two aims, the MD employs a carry-over relief mechanism at both company and shareholder level. Through the carry-over mechanism at shareholder level, laid down in Article…
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…
This contribution lays down a general plan for what the EU should do in order to attain a harmonized set of norms regulating the allocation of taxing rights among Member States and in the relation between those States and third countries, which would benefit both Member States and their taxpayers by eliminating several instances of…
Google’s international corporate structure and operating model has featured significantly in the political and legal debate about the taxation of multinational companies, particularly in the technology sector. Although presented in anonymous form, “Rco Group”, engaged in internet search and advertising services described in the OECD BEPS Action 1, Addressing the Tax Challenges of the Digital…
On 22 June 2017, the OECD released for public comment the revised discussion draft on the application of the profit split method, which intends to continue the work developed in the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines and, in more details, in the BEPS Actions 8-10, whose motto aims to assure that transfer pricing outcomes are in…
Intermediaries (such as: tax advisors, accountants, banks, and lawyers) who design tax structures are now on the Commission’s radar. She recently proposed extensive transparency rules on the basis of which information about cross-border tax structures – bearing certain ‘hallmarks’ – will now have to be reported by the intermediary to the national tax authority (‘reporting…
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament recently finalized the amendments to the existing Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD). This decision was based on the related proposal of the European Commission, submitted in July 2016.EU initiatives in this direction – including adoption…
On June 7, 2017, India joined more than 65 countries in signing the OECD’s Multilateral Instrument to implement tax treaty-related base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) recommendations. The Instrument – developed under Action 15 of the BEPS project – seeks to transpose BEPS recommendations into over a thousand tax treaties in a “synchronized and efficient…
On 21 June 2017, the European Commission released its Proposal on transparency rules for tax intermediaries. It primarily seeks to address concerns raised by the ECOFIN Council and the European Parliament in trying to investigate and tackle the role of intermediaries in tax evasion and tax avoidance schemes of multinational companies. New rules impose an…
The Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax treaty Related measures to prevent BEPS (the Multilateral BEPS Convention or MLI)[1]http://www.oecd.org/tax/treaties/multilateral-convention-to-implement-tax-treaty-related-measures-to-prevent-BEPS.pdf); Explanatory Statement: … Continue reading rounded up the implementation of the treaty-based final BEPS outcomes in one single document. MLI is aimed at providing a framework that could allow amending existing bilateral treaties at once, bringing them in…
An analysis from a State Aid perspective. This contribution focuses on the profit split methodology in light of current EU Commission’s investigations in the area of tax rulings and transfer pricing[1]. Prior to my points, I shall make some brief preliminary comments to set the scene. According to the EU Commission a tax ruling confers…
On 23 May the OECD published a Public Discussion Draft on Implementation Guidance on Hard-to-Value intangibles (HTVIs). Comments are due by 30 June 2017, so hurry. 1. Introduction All guidance by the CFA and the opportunity to comment is appreciated, especially on a major topic like intangibles. That being said, I think that this paper…
FATCA: GIINs and LEIs Musings of Professor William Byrnes with the tremendous brain power of Haydon Perryman Firstly, a loud shout out to Haydon Perryman who crunches the IRS GIIN list into workable data. His research is at the forefront of FATCA and CRS intelligence and the only available for analysis of FATCA. Now unto some numbers. As…
