While earthlings are grappling with taxation in a digitalised world, a new and important frontier has been opening up somewhat less observed. Commercial exploitation of space has become commonplace and plans for activity beyond our planet more ambitious. At the IFA Permanent Scientific Committee  we are always looking ahead to see where cutting-edge tax issues…

In many member states’ tax law, mutual investment funds are relieved from double taxation, i.e. proceeds from investments are taxed only once even though they are earned on two levels: first at the level of the fund, and then at the level of the owners of the fund. The logic behind this is that mutual…

William Byrnes, Texas A&M University School of Law* (33-page draft research available on SSRN) Howdy!  Earlier today the General Court of the European Court of Justice (EGC) sided with Starbucks’ transfer pricing analysis of its Dutch coffee roaster, and thus against the European Commission’s approach. Thus, I feel that my transfer pricing research about this…

On 10 September Wolters Kluwer organized an interesting discussion on Permanent Establishments. The discussion was led by 3 panelists, Tamara Schwärzler (PwC Switzerland); Arvid A. Skaar (Norwegian lawyer, well known for his standard work on Permanent Establishments) and myself as editor of the Wolters Kluwer PE+ tool. Tamara kicked off the session by discussing Tax…

Nothing changed but the change Despite several changes were introduced to Chapter I and Chapter VI of the 2017 OECD Guidelines on intangibles in accordance with Actions 8-10 BEPS Final Reports to align taxing rights and value creation, those changes were not substantial to permit an application of the ALP that will prevent profit shifting…

Not the Hungarian Constitutional Court but maybe AG Kokott in her forthcoming opinion in the Google Ireland case… Optimistically speaking, the Hungarian Advertisement Tax contributes to a large extent to the enrichment of jurisprudence both in the field of EU law and the law of double tax treaties, as it features a host of discriminatory,…

Introduction The new European Commission that is taking shape shall inherit quite a heavy file of initiatives to pursue in the next five years. Certainly, this is the case in the area of taxation. Some of these proposals are on the waiting list for years. For example, the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) was…

The OECD Work Programme published in May of this year under the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS aims to achieve a consensus solution to the problems of taxing the digital economy. The OECD Work Programme is broad in scope and considers radical departures from long established rules for international taxation, for example current transfer pricing…

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…

In this blog, I shall examine the policy and characteristics underlying the split-rate system of taxing corporate profits/income. I shall also discuss the issue whether the Indian Dividend Distribution Tax (DDT) represents an inverse split-rate applied to corporate profits/income, or if it is merely an independent levy, which is source-agnostic. Split-rates and their role in…

We are happy to inform you that the latest issue of the journal is now available and includes the following contributions:   Rita de la Feria, The New VAT General Reverse-Charge Mechanism In this article, the author critically examines the EU proposal on tackling VAT fraud perpetrated through missing traders.   Diane de Charette, The…

DNB (Dutch Central Bank) issued on July 2 2019 a Guideline entitled “Good practices tax integrity risks at clients of banks” (Good practices fiscale integriteitsrisico’s bij cliënten van banken). The Financieel Dagblad (Dutch financial newspaper) published an article on August 7 on the topic. The editor’s comment in the August 8 paper concludes this is…

I am happy to inform you that the latest issue of the journal is now available and is mainly dedicated to International Tax Arbitration, where ground-breaking and complementary perspectives on Tax Arbitration are covered. My editorial is dedicated to the topic, and John Avery Jones wrote a guest editorial on the Types of Arbitration Procedure….

Two of my recent articles have examined the Australian decision in Commissioner of Taxation v Resource Capital Fund IV LP [2019] FCAFC 51. The articles examine the central question on the source of income earned and the tax classification and entitlement to treaty benefits of investment funds. Real property gains This time I consider two…