In 2015, people around the globe celebrated the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta Libertatum, considered to be the first constitutional-like document that established restrictions on a sovereign’s basically unlimited power. The principle of “no taxation without representation” has its origins in this British document of 1215. The symbolic relevance of the Magna Carta has…
The Indian Ministry of Finance released last month draft guidance on applying the “place of effective management” (POEM) test to determine tax residence of companies. The guidance came almost eight months after the Government substituted, through the 2015 Finance Act, the existing “control and management” test with the universal concept of POEM in Section 6(3)…
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…
Interest and penalty regimes place a high premium on correctly identifying the existence of a permanent establishment in the territory of a state. The failure to do so often means that there is no reporting to the tax administration by the foreign enterprise by way of registration or filing of returns. This is particularly true…
Volume 44 (2016) Issue 1 contains: EDITORIAL Ana Paulo DOURADO, ‘May You Live In Interesting Times’ Abstract: In the current global tax good governance context, exchange of information is one condition for the BEPS initiative to be successful. Action 5 (Counter Harmful Tax Practices More Effectively, Taking into Account Transparency and Substance) foresees mandatory spontaneous…
In his last State of the Union speech on January 13, 2016 Obama put it quite clear: “The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth. Period. It’s not even close.” With this statement Obama obviously addressed the position of the United States in terms of military capacity and its position in…
Howdy from Prof. Haydon Perryman and I of Texas A&M University. This month we undertake a 2015 review of FATCA’s GIIN registrations relative to 2014. We also include a chart at the end of this post comparing 2014 and 2015 by IGA type, as well as a monthly breakdown of GIIN registrations since list publication began in…
“Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.” Benjamin Franklin Organisations generally, when starting a business in any country, concentrate on getting a licence to operate, in setting up an office, employing the correct staff and doing business. Otherwise, why else would an organisation…
A Latin American Perspective Until very recently tax risk management concepts were quite stable. The over-riding principle in this area was and still is that tax risk is best managed by the prevention of all unnecessary disputes; but as simple as this principle appear to be, taken to an extreme, avoidance of all potential tax…
The Spanish National Court has recently ruled (case no. 182/2012) that a Spanish affiliate of Dell that sold Dell computers in Spain under a commissionaire agreement with Dell Ireland constituted a permanent establishment of the Irish group sales company. The decision is in line with earlier Spanish Supreme Court Decisions in Roche Vitamins Europe SA…
Since the press releases confirming negative State Aid decisions in the Starbucks and Fiat tax ruling cases late October, the EU tax law community is still eagerly awaiting the publication of the actual decisions (to be published here and here). Most likely, the decisions will hinge on the concrete transfer pricing calculations made (or accepted)…
Starbucks Manufacturing BV (SMBV), based in the Netherlands, is the only coffee roasting company in the Starbucks group in Europe. It sells and distributes roasted coffee and coffee-related products (e.g. cups, packaged food, pastries) to Starbucks outlets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Read my previous comments on this case post here. The EU…
Taxation is undoubtedly the unrivaled field where public interest needs and individual rights most evidently confront to each other. Until the second part of the last decade, the principle of reserve or legality which might be traced back to the Magna Carta, and was modernly adopted almost unanimously by western constitutionalism, set forth a clear…
The raison d’être of corporate taxation relates to the aim of achieving an impartial treatment of different legal forms in order to safeguard a level playing field for conducting business. In the EU this aim must be contemplated in conjunction with the objective of establishing an internal market free of fiscal barriers. The present post…
