International Tax Law

Alienation of Shares, BEPS, Double Taxation, International Tax Law, M&A and Reorganizations, MLI, OECD, Residence, State Aid, Tax Avoidance, Tax Treaties

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

The Tax Court of Canada decision in Alta Energy Luxembourg S.A.R.L. v. The Queen, 2018 TCC 152 (CanLII) on August 22, 2018 may provide useful pointers to the meaning and application of the PPT found in Article 7(1) of the MLI and Article 29(9). A Luxembourg resident company claimed exemption from Canadian income tax under…

BEPS, Blacklisting, International Tax Law, OECD

(Brazilian Institute for Tax Law (IBDT))/ /Leave a comment

The idea for this article came to me after I read a piece published by the International Tax Review with the title “Mexico confirms that US may qualify as a preferential tax regime in light of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act”.[1] Instead of curating a proper blacklist, or a published list of tax havens…

Double Taxation, International Tax Law, OECD, Permanent Establishments, Tax Planning, Tax Treaties

(Tax Lawyer)/ /1 Comment

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…

BEPS, International Tax Law, MLI, OECD, Tax Policy, Tax Treaties, Transfer Pricing, United Nations

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

The update on tax certainty IMF/OECD Report for the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors   published on 22 July 2018 may not have been everyone’s summer holiday reading. This report follows on from the 2017 IMF/OECD Report for the G20 Finance Ministers in March 2017. It should certainly give pause for thought. The “tax…

Double Taxation, International Tax Law, OECD, Permanent Establishments, Tax Avoidance, Tax Policy, Tax Treaties

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On July 13, 2018, India’s Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) issued for stakeholders’ comments a consultation document on framing of tax rules in respect of the concept of “significant economic presence” – a recent addition to the Indian Income Tax jurisprudence. Readers will recollect that India’s 2018 Budget proposed to amend the definition of…

BEPS, International Tax Law, OECD, Tax Avoidance, Tax Policy, Tax Treaties, Uncategorized

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

I am delighted to see that my post on value creation has stimulated discussion on the fundamental thinking about international taxation. See the posts of my friends and colleagues Werner Haslehner and Sergio André Rocha. At the IFA seminar in Rotterdam, we puzzled over the meaning of “value creation”. Werner also referred to another mystifying…

BEPS, Digitalization, International Tax Law

(Brazilian Institute for Tax Law (IBDT))/ /Leave a comment

The well-known expression “butterfly effect” comes from chaos theory, and it refers to the idea that a butterfly could flap its wings in Brazil and, through ripple effect, set off a tornado in Texas. Bringing this expression into the tax world, a decision by a domestic court on a seemingly domestic tax matter could trigger…

Alienation of Shares, EU/EEA, International Tax Law, Real Estate, REIT, Tax Treaties

(Partner Cuatrecasas Madrid) and (Tax Associate Cuatrecasas)/ /1 Comment

Article 13.1 of the double tax treaty (DTT) signed between Luxembourg and Spain authorizes Spain to tax gains from the alienation of shares in a company whose assets consist principally of immovable property in Spain, with no exceptions for properties engaged in economic activities. Let us look at a scenario where a Luxembourg company makes…