The transition from bilateralism to multilateralism in regard of international law-making seems to be a relentless work in progress. Nobody contests that multilateralism would be – legally speaking – preferable. On the other hand, the governments of the G20 have been constantly hesitant regarding a multilateral surveillance of their macroeconomic policies. Formally, the treaties are…
Harmonisation of the efforts to discourage tax avoidance in the EU Recently, besides the objective of maintaining a balanced allocation1 (a reflection of the principle of territoriality), the imperative of restoring trust in the fairness of tax systems has been gaining terrain as a possible justification for restrictions of free movement rights2. The Member States…
The raison d’être of corporate taxation relates to the aim of achieving an impartial treatment of different legal forms in order to safeguard a level playing field for conducting business. In the EU this aim must be contemplated in conjunction with the objective of establishing an internal market free of fiscal barriers. The present post…
According to EU law the prevailing divergences between the national tax systems shall not be corrected by unilateral measures that grant fiscal advantages to firms, which are affected by the disparities between tax systems[1]. Equally, the corrections implemented unilaterally that mean to neutralise the disparities between tax systems shall be aligned with the logic of…
The scope of the present article will be narrow. The aim is to point out a misinterpretation of the Cadbury ruling, which might have caused a flawed theory of the compatibility of certain CFC regimes with EU law. I do not use the appellative “flawed” to sound overconfident, but because in my view, good law…
In many European countries, the question of legal personality has relevance for determining the transparent character of a business entity for tax purposes and this assessment is even more complex when the entity has been established under foreign law. On the other side, in the United States, any business entity can acquire status of corporation…
The establishment of a link between the financial interests of the Union and the general budget of the Union is the reason why the domestic penalties made applicable in matters of VAT fraud are covered by Union law. On 8 September 2015 the Court of Justice of the EU (“CJEU”) issued its ruling in Taricco,…
A Delaware company, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of a Swedish corporation (aktiebolag), acted as a non-independent agent on behalf of exporting companies in the United States. The profit of the subsidiary was exempt from corporate taxation in the United States, while the dividends paid to the Swedish parent were subjected to federal tax….
The case brings about the opportunity to fill a gap in the Norwegian tax law. In order to determine the fiscal residence of a corporation, the current formula stipulated by art. 2(2) Tax Act uses the notion of ‘belonging to the jurisdiction’, while the OECD model employs the term ‘place of effective management’[1] as a…
