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…

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 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…

Being familiar with the Spanish tax environment, readers will know that Spain does not withhold taxes on interest paid to EU residents. This domestic exemption has been in force for several decades, long before the EU Interest and Royalties Directive. The domestic exemption has the beauty of simplicity: it applies to all EU-resident lenders, without…

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…

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…

The importance of the permanent establishment (PE) principle in tax treaties cannot be undermined. Whether or not a source country has the right to tax business profits of a foreign company would depend wholly on the existence or non-existence of a PE of that company in the source country. Work undertaken by the OECD in…

There is only one legal certainty about Brexit. On 29 March 2019 EU law will cease to apply in the United Kingdom, as a result of the UK having given notice of withdrawal on 29 March 2017. This is clear from Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union. Draft withdrawal agreement A Draft Agreement…

Increased focus on taxation of cross-border situations involving both individuals and companies is one of the key features of the post-BEPS international tax environment. One central aspect of this is increased administrative cooperation between tax administrations in exchange of information and assistance in recovery of taxes. Territoriality principle Recent UK decisions have emphasised the need…

Non-inclusion of the Swiss-United Kingdom income tax treaty in the list of Covered Tax Agreements of both the states on signing the BEPS MLI on 7 June 2017 surprised some observers. This evident gap between two OECD member countries was quickly filled by a protocol to the Swiss-United Kingdom treaty concluded on 30 November 2017….

Much has been said and written globally about Google’s tax affairs. The way the company carries on its business operations and how much tax it pays on income generated from such operations has been a subject of recent, heated debate in both France and the UK. In India too, international tax experts are discussing an…

Recently, a special Mexican Circuit Court (“the Court”) issued a ruling regarding the interpretation of an international convention (the North American Free Trade Agreement or “NAFTA”) which may signal broader guidance for the interpretation of treaties in Mexico. The case was ruled in order to resolve conflicting decisions by two Circuit Courts, as a result…

Taxation of the digital economy featured in discussion on the implementation of the OECD/G20 BEPS action items at the annual conference of the Canadian Tax Foundation in Toronto on 21 November 2017. Several speakers note that no generally accepted solution had been found to address the impact of the digitalisation of the global economy on…

In regards to the title of this post, the Ways & Means version of international tax reform moves toward a territorial regime of granting an exemption for foreign profits but then derogates from the exemption with a series of BEPS measures.[1] by William Byrnes, Texas A&M University Law On Thursday, November 2, 2017, the Republicans…