If the BEPS Project is considered formally concluded with the signature of the Multilateral Instrument, the war against base erosion and aggressive tax planning is still ongoing, with many battles remaining to be won. In this context, each and every transaction that can potentially serve aggressive tax planning is key target for policy-makers at the…
It is common to face resistance in MAP application, which is essentially based on misconception of Double Taxation Conventions (DTCs). As Article 9(1) establishes the arm’s length standard, which presents a range of possible prices, that misunderstanding may imply more economic double taxation. Given the Brazilian position on recent transfer pricing changes, these problems become…
Since the OECD started conceiving and implementing the BEPS project, the major argumentation in favour of the new policies is mainly based on the refrain that everybody should pay their “fair share” of taxes. It is hard to find any publicly available explanation about what exactly lies behind the idea of a “fair share” of…
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…
The Tax Court of Canada decision in Alta Energy Luxembourg S.A.R.L. v. The Queen, 2018 TCC 152 (CanLII) on August 22, 2018 may provide useful pointers to the meaning and application of the PPT found in Article 7(1) of the MLI and Article 29(9). A Luxembourg resident company claimed exemption from Canadian income tax under…
The idea for this article came to me after I read a piece published by the International Tax Review with the title “Mexico confirms that US may qualify as a preferential tax regime in light of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act”.[1] Instead of curating a proper blacklist, or a published list of tax havens…
I am delighted to inform you that the latest issue (Issue 10) of the journal is available online. My editorial focuses on the recently published OECD Financial Transactions Discussion Draft, Ruth Mason discusses the Wayfair case, and the debate on whistleblowers and taxes is followed up by Alain Steichen. You can read and select many…
Some recent decisions of the CJEU (Eqiom, C-6/16 of 7 September 2017, and Deister Holding and Juhler Holding, joint cases C-504/16 and C-613/16 of 20 December 2017) and the conclusions of AG Kokott[1]Who also drafted the conclusions in Eqiom. delivered on 1 March 2018 in the six Danish “Beneficial Ownership Cases” (cases C-115/16, C-116/16, C-117/16,…
The Marks & Spencer case (C-446/03), in which the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union rendered its decision that final losses incurred by its non-resident subsidiary can be deducted in the Member State of the resident parent company, caused a commotion. This doctrine is considered to be a violation on…
According to the OECD’s work “The Role and Design of Net Wealth Taxes in the OECD” (published on April 12, 2018, available here), very few OECD countries still apply net wealth taxes to individuals: in 2017, the list only comprises France, Norway, Spain and Switzerland. The report mentions that, in 2008, Spain introduced a 100%…
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…
I am happy to inform you that the latest issue – the August-September double issue – of the journal is now available, and includes many excellent contributions on a varied range of topics, such as, among others, Taxation in the Digitalized Economy, Article 12-A UN Model Convention, Mandatory Tax Arbitration, the Ancillary Principle Under Model…
