We are happy to inform you that the latest issue of the journal is now available and includes the following contributions: Stijn Blaakman & Jasper Korving, The Tax Base in BEFIT and Pillar Two: Harmony, Dissonance, or Off-Key? On 12 September 2023, the European Commission published the directive proposal ‘Business in Europe: Framework for…
The Tax Court issued a nine to eight split decision of six opinions (three in favor and three dissenting) upholding the Service’s 1994 blocked income regulations. Yesterday, February 9, 2023, the Tax Court finally issued its ‘split’ decision regarding the 3M “blocked income” issue (formally, a decision regarding the validity of the Treasury Regulation regarding…
The Canadian Federal Court of Appeal has upheld the Tax Court of Canada decision in Canada v. Alta Energy Luxembourg S.A.R.L., 2020 FCA 43 (CanLII). The case is of some significance because the Canadian Revenue Agency (“CRA”) sought to apply the Canadian domestic general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR) in order to deny treaty relief. The…
Globally, countries are making a concerted effort to rein in the direct tax challenges posed by the digital economy. Some of this work is directly inspired by the recommendations set out by the OECD as part of its 15-point Action Plan to tackle base erosion and profit shifting. The Indian government, too, introduced two key…
One of the fascinating features of EU law is that no matter how well-established its classics may be, they are revisited over and over again. If you thought you had seen it all about preliminary references, think twice. Always think twice, because you can never be fully sure until the Court’s next judgment. Last week,…
Taxation of the digital economy remains fixed in the first position of the international tax charts, with the discussions focusing lately on the so-called Amazon tax considered to be introduced in the UK. The debate has been exalted following respective recent statement by the UK Finance Minister P. Hammond, stressing that the “country needs a…
Introduction Recently captive insurance arrangements have been scrutinized all over the world by tax authorities as they are believed to be vehicles that encourage profit shifting. The OECD, in the BEPS Action Plan, had considered captive insurance arrangements as a major area of concern. In fact, in the recently released 2018 OECD discussion draft on…
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…
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…
The Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax treaty Related measures to prevent BEPS (the Multilateral BEPS Convention or MLI)[1]http://www.oecd.org/tax/treaties/multilateral-convention-to-implement-tax-treaty-related-measures-to-prevent-BEPS.pdf); Explanatory Statement: … Continue reading rounded up the implementation of the treaty-based final BEPS outcomes in one single document. MLI is aimed at providing a framework that could allow amending existing bilateral treaties at once, bringing them in…
I was recently asked to analyze the often quoted figure of $150 billion lost by the U.S. Treasury to foreign non-tax compliance by U.S. taxpayers. My transcribed remarks are below. Also, see William Byrnes’ Guide to FATCA & CRS Compliance (Matthew Bender 5th ed., 2017) at pp. 30, 33-34, 50, 59, 109-112, and 119-122. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2926119 How…
The path from bank secrecy to automatic exchange of information and beyond Giant steps towards international transparency: The 2008 and 2014 Milestones In 2015 OECD released its Update on Voluntary Disclosure Programs: A pathway to tax compliance, which was a renewed edition of the original survey published in 2010. The 2015 update was aimed at…
Back in April this year, my contribution on the Panama Papers scandal started by saying that: “Massive leaks of information on offshore activity like the Panama Papers illustrate the need for enhanced global tax cooperation with an improved and deeper inter-jurisdictional information sharing scheme.”[1] It is not now my intention to follow the subsequent episodes…
“I know there’s a proverb which that says ‘To err is human,’ but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries.” – Agatha Christie, Hallowe’en Party The now Have you ever wondered how technology can change the future of solving tax questions, or wondered if it would even be possible…
