Taxes at source which are typically withheld by the payor in a transaction and transferred to tax authorities on behalf of the payee of the same transaction.
The Italian Supreme Court issued a landmark case (n. 27113 December 2016) setting out the principles to be taken into account when analyzing whether a company can be deemed the “beneficial owner” for the purpose of being entitled to double tax treaty benefits. In particular, the Italian Supreme Court examined whether a company resident for…
On February 1, 2017, India’s Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, presented the country’s 2017-18 Budget, which contains several tax proposals in the area of international tax law, including the introduction of a new provision to provide for transfer pricing secondary adjustments and new thin capitalization rules. The Budget also contains much-needed clarity on the tax treatment…
There are several misconceptions in international taxation, some of them more pervasive than others. Many are often repeated by speakers at tax conferences without being contradicted. The first is the so-called interest deduction bias. It is not the main topic of this blog, but I will deal with it by way of introduction. The Interest…
Probably without noticing it, Colombia did not take into account that signing the recent DTT with France would allow some treaty-covered taxpayers to claim Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN) protection. Some of Colombia’s DTTs, as the ones signed with Spain, Chile, Switzerland, Portugal and Mexico, include Most-Favoured-Nation clauses with respect to royalties. In this sense, it is important…
When UK voters went to the polls on 23 June 2016 and voted by a slim majority to leave the European Union, few of them had in mind the impact on taxation. Future generations are unlikely to view it kindly. Looked at from the present the dominating features are uncertainty and disruption of settled tax…
1. The Tendency We live in a time where the media, politicians, NGOs and activists increasingly are preoccupied with international tax matters. A simultaneous preoccupation is observed among the OECD, G20, EU countries and most other developed countries alike. This has led to continuously increasing regulatory requirements and strengthened legislation towards companies. The tendency is…
“Starbucks tax deal equals inadmissible state aid”: it was with this headline that newspapers reported on 21 October 2015 that the European Commission – instigated by Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner for Competition – had ruled that the Netherlands had been favouring Starbucks with an “inadmissible” tax advantage in the 20 to 30 million euro…
A critical appraisal of the EU Switch Over Rule and the Indian Equalization Levy At present, it is unavoidable to recognize that the international tax scenario is in transition to a much more inter-nation equitable system, where the national tax base will be better protected against erosion and profit-shifting corporate manipulations than it was in…
Model tax treaties do matter. The OECD and UN Models constitute precedent books with standard clauses that contracting states can follow or adapt to suit their particular circumstances. The US Model treaty, in contrast, is a statement of intent. The preamble to the revised 2016 US Model Income Tax Convention released by the US Treasury…
On January 15, 2016, in a joint (bi-partisan) letter of Senate Finance Committee Republicans and Democrats to US Treasury, one that will certainly be of interest to our friends at Wolters Kluwer (a Netherlands parent multinational enterprise), the Senate Finance Committee members encouraged Treasury to use a tit-for-tat strategy against the EU Commission. The letter stated that…
So what were the other discussions at the UN from 19 to 23 October this year? One of the main topics is the continuing work on a withholding tax on technical services. The reason for developing countries is simple: it is a simple, effective way to protect the local tax base and prevent BEPS through…
The case brings about the opportunity to fill a gap in the Norwegian tax law. In order to determine the fiscal residence of a corporation, the current formula stipulated by art. 2(2) Tax Act uses the notion of ‘belonging to the jurisdiction’, while the OECD model employs the term ‘place of effective management’[1] as a…
The DTT’s signed by the LATAM countries generally follow the rule included both in the OECD and UN Tax-Convention Models. Article 24 Section 1 states that “nationals of a contracting state shall not be subjected in the other contracting state to any taxation or any requirement connected therewith, which is other or more burdensome than…
The taxation of MNEs is widely debated. This is even more so with respect to MNE’s tax planning arrangements. Increasingly, however, it seems that politicians and the media are not paying enough attention to facts in the debate. Recently we have witnessed examples in my home country of this tendency. These examples are the reason…
