the world is full of black and grey hat tax administrations. The U.S. has the opportunity to leverage its power as the world’s safe (tax) haven for bi-lateral information exchange as a carrot – stick policy tool to clean them up, and move them to become white hat, best practices tax administrations.
The divorce agreement and future gaps in UK law Divorces are never easy. What will happen after the Brexit? Nobody knows yet. From a legal perspective, article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) is of main importance now. That article paves the way for the UK to withdraw from the EU by means…
Volume 44 (2016) issue 6/7 contains: EDITORIAL: Ana Paula DOURADO, ‘The EU Anti Tax Avoidance Package: Moving Ahead of BEPS?’ ARTICLES: Félix Daniel MARTINEZ LAGUNA, ‘Institutional Hybrid Financial Instruments and Double Non-taxation under Domestic Rules and Tax Treaty Law: The Example of Spain’ Abstract: Attention has been paid to double non-taxation resulting from contractual hybrid…
Volume 25 (2016) issue 3 contains: EDITORIAL: Bruno PEETERS, ‘Tax Shifts in EU-Member States: The Growing Impact of (Shifting) Recommendations by the European Commission on National Tax Policy’ ARTICLES: Aitor NAVARRO, Leopoldo PARADA, Paloma SCHWARZ, ‘The Proposal for an EU Anti-avoidance Directive: Some Preliminary Thoughts’ Abstract: On 28 January 2016, the European Commission made…
On May 10, 2016, the Indian Finance Ministry announced that a new protocol has been finalized to amend certain provisions of the Indo-Mauritius double taxation avoidance agreement. According to a press release issued by the Finance Ministry, the protocol is aimed at tackling the dual problem of treaty shopping and round tripping of funds, besides…
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…
Introduction While tax legislation is subject to continuous changes, tax treaties are an interesting tool whereby Contracting States offer investors some degree of legal certainty, especially where there is a recognition that internal law should not override tax treaties’ provisions. Article 2(4) of OECD-MA can be seen as a provision intended to assure the continuity…
Harmonisation of the efforts to discourage tax avoidance in the EU Recently, besides the objective of maintaining a balanced allocation1 (a reflection of the principle of territoriality), the imperative of restoring trust in the fairness of tax systems has been gaining terrain as a possible justification for restrictions of free movement rights2. The Member States…
The attribution of profits to a permanent establishment is already a complex issue with at least three separate regimes in the tax treaty context- the OECD Authorised Approach under the 2010 OECD version of Article 7 of the OECD Model, the AOA subject to limitations required by the pre-2010 version and that permitted by Article…
On June 24 the British people voted in favour of the UK leaving the EU. The vote itself does not automatically imply the withdrawal from the EU: indeed, such withdrawal shall take place pursuant to Article 50 of the EU Treaty, which requires in the first place the notification of the intention to leave the…
“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…
Corporate Social Responsibility (“CSR”) has become one of the top priorities on the Agenda of almost all supranational bodies (OECD, EU, UN) and many jurisdictions. Due to the overall lack of revenues by Countries and the innumerable tax-related leaks (Luxleaks, Panama papers, etc.) along with the recent and ongoing changes within the worldwide international tax…
On June 27, 2016 the EU Commission published the long awaited Starbucks State Aid decision (see here). The EU Commission’s decision challenges the outcome of the Advanced Pricing Agreement (APA) between the Netherlands Tax Authority (Tax Authority) and Starbucks Manufacturing BV (SMBV), a wholly owned and controlled coffee roasting operation. Below is the Part I…
Is tax avoidance a bad thing? The international tax community seems recently to adopt an almost unanimous position: Yes, it is supposedly a very bad thing, as it not only reduces public revenue, but also makes taxation “less fair”, since tax-avoiding taxpayers do not pay their “fair share”. It is surprising how unanimous is this…
