The judgments of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on the withholding tax exemption provided by the Interest and Royalties Directive (available here – the ‘IRD judgment’) and the Parent-Subsidiary Directive (available here – ‘the PSD judgment’) on February 26, 2019 (‘the Danish cases’) have raised many issues to discuss. As some authors have pointed…
Brazilian Transfer Pricing Rules have been in force since 1996. When introduced, the intent of the legislator was clearly the prevention of tax evasion through manipulation of prices, though setting up a methodology easy to apply and to enforce. It is common sense that the methodology facilitates the fiscalization of tax officials and provides certainty…
I have received several requests this July 4th holiday in the U.S. about my initial thoughts on the EU Commission’s 56-page published (public version from earlier this week) State Aid preliminary decision with the reasoning that The Netherlands government provided Nike an anti-competitive subsidy via the tax system. My paraphrasing of the following EU Commission…
Commissioner of Taxation v Resource Capital Fund IV LP [2019] FCAFC 51 addressed a number of fundamental international tax issues. The case concerned a gain from the sale of shares in an Australian incorporated public company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange by two Cayman Island limited partnerships whose partners included residents of the United…
A. Where are we? A worldwide and LATAM picture A current worldwide picture of unilateral initiatives developed on the direct taxation of the digitalized economy includes at least the following paths:[1] (i) the traditional PE concept, as updated by BEPS Final Recommendation on Action 7, and subsequently reflected in the OECD MC 2017 and the…
On June 9, 2019 the G20 finance ministers endorsed the program of work that was issued by the OECD’s Inclusive Framework on BEPS on May 31, 2019 in relation to tax challenges arising from the digitalization of the economy. As expected, the program of work has two parts. The first part, called Pillar One, aims…
Introduction The taxation of cryptocurrencies has managed to attract strong interest even among the general Finnish population. A key reason has been the perceived unfairness of crypto taxation, because a private person pays taxes on crypto gains but has been unable to deduct losses. Luckily, recent case law brought change to this asymmetry. For the…
This is a short series of blogs on transfer pricing documentation: what I have seen over the years, how it does (not) align with OECD documentation requirements, and thoughts on possible improvements. I focus on practicalities. Why do we need TP documentation? One answer is because many countries’ laws require it. More interesting is the…
In a double take two-to-one decision because of a withdrawn decision due to the death of a judge, a Ninth Circuit panel in Altera reversed a unanimous en banc decision of the Tax Court that the qualified cost sharing arrangements (QCSA) regulations[1] were invalid under the Administrative Procedure Act.[2] The renown Professor Calvin Johnson (Texas) and I shared comments on this case. Professor Johnson’s…
Mutual agreement procedure (MAP) pursuant to article 25 of the OECD and UN Model treaties imposes obligations on tax administrations. Inadequacies in the performance of these obligations has been the subject of much work by the OECD in the course of the 21st Century. BEPS Action 14 OECD Action 14 – 2015 Final Report, Making…
Beginning 1 January 2020, Switzerland will significantly reshape its corporate taxation in an effort to comply with international tax standards while remaining one of the most attractive jurisdictions for foreign investments. 1. Introduction In this article, I will provide the background that led to that Swiss tax reform (“Reform”) also elaborating on the tax regimes…
I am delighted to inform you that the June-July 2019 double issue of Intertax has been published. It includes the editorial by Stef van Weeghel, Digitalization in a Broader Tax Perspective; double-blind peer-reviewed articles on corporate tax systems, the MLI, cross-border losses and EU law, liability in EU VAT, and taxation of cryptocurrencies. You may…
Taxation of the digital economy has become a war in the post-BEPS world. As with any war, there are more or less clear rivals and there will be of course winners and losers. It goes without saying that there are also “casualties” in this conflict, i.e. those policy options initially included in the drafts published…
The quest to align the international tax order with the challenges posed by the digital economy has so far mostly focused on solving issues involving incorporated structures. What is somehow escaping the attention of the tax treaty policymakers is the fact that it is not only in the domain of companies that we have lost…
