Policies about taxation, typically at a macro economic scale.
The Debate What makes a tax system competitive? How can countries multiply the competitiveness of the existing system? These question-marks are attracting substantial research by today’s policy makers, at national and international level as well as by business lobbyists. Most importantly, their potential replies entail significant impact for taxpayers and the society in general. Indicatively,…
According to an undisclosed policy paper that is currently circulated within the OECD, the German government is promoting an internationally coordinated reform of corporate taxation. Specifically, Germany proposes an effective minimum tax on the profits of multinational companies. Complex, easy to manipulate and unfair – there is widespread discontent with the current system of international…
Some recent decisions of the CJEU (Eqiom, C-6/16 of 7 September 2017, and Deister Holding and Juhler Holding, joint cases C-504/16 and C-613/16 of 20 December 2017) and the conclusions of AG Kokott[1]Who also drafted the conclusions in Eqiom. delivered on 1 March 2018 in the six Danish “Beneficial Ownership Cases” (cases C-115/16, C-116/16, C-117/16,…
The Marks & Spencer case (C-446/03), in which the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union rendered its decision that final losses incurred by its non-resident subsidiary can be deducted in the Member State of the resident parent company, caused a commotion. This doctrine is considered to be a violation on…
According to the OECD’s work “The Role and Design of Net Wealth Taxes in the OECD” (published on April 12, 2018, available here), very few OECD countries still apply net wealth taxes to individuals: in 2017, the list only comprises France, Norway, Spain and Switzerland. The report mentions that, in 2008, Spain introduced a 100%…
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…
On May 11th a very interesting conference with the topic “How Source and Residence have Developed: Rethinking the Principles of International Income Taxation” has taken place, in Bergamo, organised by the Department of Law of the University of Bergamo and by the University of Heidelberg. Having not stayed until the discussion, I could not comment…
The first semester of 2018 has witnessed notable – if not unprecedented – activity in the area of tax policy, in the EU as well as internationally. The wind of change tha we sense in international taxation the last decade is evidently becoming stronger and stronger, while its direction remains largely undefined. The CFE Tax…
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…
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…
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” George Santayana, The Life of Reason: Reason in Common Sense (1905). A seminar was held in Rotterdam on 18 May 2018 on “value creation” in the new tax universe to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the International Fiscal Association. An erudite panel, comprising Prof…
Introduction As the General Reporter for the Subject 2 (The Future of Transfer Pricing) of the 2017 IFA Congress in Rio de Janeiro, I joined the plenary session on August 29 in a panel chaired by Luís Eduardo Schoueri and composed of Isabel Verlinden, Jefferson Vanderwolk, Mateus Calicchio Barbosa, Natalia Quiñones, Richard Vann, and Yariv…
On 6 March 2018, the CJEU has issue its judgment on the case Achmea BV (C-284/16 here), that can impact many areas of the EU law, including tax matters. The Court states that “Articles 267 and 344 TFEU must be interpreted as precluding a provision in an international agreement concluded between Member States, such as Article 8…
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…
