Dividends

Abuse of law, Abuse of rights, Anti-tax avoidance, Beneficial ownership, Canada, Corporate income tax, Direct taxation, Dividends, Double Taxation, income tax, International Tax Law, Loans, OECD MC Convention, Tax Avoidance, Tax haven, Tax Planning, Tax Treaties, United Kingdom, Withholding Taxes

(Temple Tax Chambers; King’s College London)/ /Leave a comment

The recent English Court of Appeal decision in Hargreaves Property Holdings Ltd v HMRC [2024] EWCA Civ 365 http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2024/365.html  has again examined the meaning of beneficial ownership and the related expression “beneficially entitled” in UK domestic tax law. It follows shortly after the Tax Court of Canada decision in Husky Energy Energy Inc. v The…

Abuse of law, Abuse of rights, Anti-tax avoidance, Beneficial ownership, Canada, Dividends, Double Taxation, Finance, Financial transactions, GAAR, income tax, International Tax Law, Luxembourg, MLI, OECD, OECD MC Convention, Share Dealings, Tax Avoidance, Tax haven, Tax Treaties, Treaty shopping, Withholding Taxes

(Temple Tax Chambers; King’s College London)/ /Leave a comment

In my previous blog I examined the Tax Court of Canada’s analysis of the meaning of beneficial ownership in tax treaties in Husky Energy Inc. v The King, 2023 TCC 167 in relation to stock or securities lending. This post examines the application of the General Anti-Avoidance Rule(GAAR) in Canada to the transactions. The facts…

Abuse of law, Anti-tax avoidance, Beneficial ownership, Canada, Direct taxation, Dividends, Double non-taxation, Double Taxation, DTA, Finance, Financial transactions, Holding company, International Tax Law, OECD, Tax Treaties, Treaty shopping, Withholding Taxes

(Temple Tax Chambers; King’s College London)/ /2 Comments

Although the meaning of beneficial ownership in tax treaties first burst onto the scene in Indofood International Finance Ltd v JP Morgan Chase Bank N.A. London Branch [2006] EWCA Civ 158  and, for the first time in Canada in Prévost Car Inc. v R 2008 TCC 231, (affirmed 2009 FCA 57), its meaning and application…

Dividends, India, Tax on distributed profits, Tax Treaties

(Managing Partner at BMR Legal) and (BMR Legal)/ /Leave a comment

In international customary law, the scope of bilateral tax conventions is not exhaustive and instead limited by the temporal scope set out in ‘taxes covered’ clause. It is true that the scope of such clause, albeit with additional procedural stipulations, is ambulatory and taxes subsequently enacted under the domestic law provisions by treaty partners are…

Abuse of law, Beneficial ownership, Dividends, EU law, EU/EEA, Switzerland, Withholding Taxes

(Tax Policy Center, University of Lausanne; Danon, Lausanne) and (Tax Policy Center, University of Lausanne)/ /Leave a comment

Recently, national courts of several EU member States (notably France[1], Italy[2], the Netherlands[3] and Spain[4]) referred to the landmark judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) in the so-called “Danish cases”.[5] On 20 April 2020, the Swiss Supreme Court gave its own interpretation of these judgments[6] in an outbound dividend case…

Beneficial ownership, Dividends, Financial institutions, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Tax Treaties, Withholding Taxes

(Reinarz Tax & Legal)/ /1 Comment

With a judgment rendered on 16 December 2019 (case no. 2C_209/2017), the Swiss Federal Supreme Court (“FSC”) rejected several reclaims of Swiss dividend withholding taxes made by a Luxembourg resident financial institution (“Lux Bank”) and thereby denied the claimant the benefits of the double taxation treaty between Switzerland and Luxembourg on income and capital taxes…

Anti-tax avoidance, Dividends, Finland, Withholding Taxes

(Hannes Snellman Attorneys Ltd)/ /Leave a comment

Tax Administration Announces New Control Project The Finnish Tax Administration has announced that it will be tackling arrangements to avoid withholding tax on dividends. According to the Tax Administration, nominee-registered shares are subject to withholding tax avoidance also in Finland. The new control project investigates the extent of the phenomenon and plans to implement comprehensive…

Dividends, India, MLI, Residence, Tax Policy, Tax Treaties

(Managing Partner at BMR Legal)/ /Leave a comment

On February 1, 2020 India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Government’s Union Budget for the year 2020-21. With its continuing promise of making India a $5 trillion economy by 2025, the budget announcements contained a host of reforms to obliterate the seeping fears regarding prospects of the Indian economy with focus on agricultural, rural…

Dividends, Double Taxation, International Tax Law, Latin America, Netherlands, OECD, Personal income tax, Residence, Tax Treaties, United Nations, Withholding Taxes

(Temple Tax Chambers; King’s College London)/ /1 Comment

Equality is one of the core values of modern democratic societies. It is no accident that equality featured in opening preamble to the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the first article of both the French Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789 and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights…

Dividends, India

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In this blog, I shall examine the policy and characteristics underlying the split-rate system of taxing corporate profits/income. I shall also discuss the issue whether the Indian Dividend Distribution Tax (DDT) represents an inverse split-rate applied to corporate profits/income, or if it is merely an independent levy, which is source-agnostic. Split-rates and their role in…