Proposes a uniform statutory GAAR for the Federation of Australia, and examines "the experiences of countries with (e.g., Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa) and without (e.g., the United States of America and the United Kingdom) a statutory GAAR"--Page ix.
This book provides a concise, practical guide to the European Union’s Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive (ATAD). Presenting unique insights into the ATAD’s five specific anti-avoidance rules, its chapters explain the background of those rules, the directive’s interactions with relevant jurisprudence, and the challenges posed to the ATAD’s interpretation and implementation in domestic law.
Tax practitioners are unfamiliar with tax theory. Tax economists remain unfamiliar with tax law and tax administration. Most textbooks relate mainly to the US, UK or European experiences. Students in emerging economies remain unfamiliar with their own taxation history. This textbook fills those gaps. It covers the concept of taxes in regards to their rationale, principles, design, and common errors. It addresses distortions in consumer choices and production decisions caused by tax and redressals. The main principles of taxation—efficiency, equity, stabilization, revenue productivity, administrative feasibility, international neutrality—are presented and discussed. The efficiency principle requires the minimisation of distortions in the market caused by tax. Equity in taxation is another principle that is maintained through progressivity in the tax structure. Similarly, other principles have their own ramifications that are also addressed. A country’s constitutional specification of tax assignment to different levels of government—central, state, municipal—are elaborated. The UK is more centralised than the US and India. India has amended its constitution to introduce a goods and services tax (GST) covering both central and state governments. Drafting of tax law is crucial for clarity and this aspect is addressed. Furthermore, the author illustrates different types of taxes such as individual income tax, corporate income tax, wealth tax, retail sales/value added/goods and services tax, selective excises, property tax, minimum taxes such as the minimum alternate tax (MAT), cash-flow tax, financial transactions tax, fringe benefits tax, customs duties and export taxes, environment tax and global carbon tax, and user charges. An emerging concern regarding the inadequacy of international taxation of multinational corporations is covered in some detail. Structural aspects of tax administration are given particular attention.
The EU's Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive (ATAD), implemented in January 2019, confronts Member States with complex challenges, particularly via the introduction of an interest limitation rule. This timely book, the first in-depth analysis of the features and implications of the directive, provides insightful and practical discussions by experts from around Europe on the crucial interactions of the ATAD with other existing anti-tax avoidance measures, the European financial sector and the fundamental freedoms. Specific issues and topics covered include the following: relation with the OECD's Base Erosion and Profit Sharing project (BEPS) and the EU's Common Corporate Tax Base initiative; technical subjects relating to corporate taxation and debt funding; problems caused by the diametrically opposite tax treatment of debt and equity within a group of companies; exclusion clauses for interest expenses; and interplay between interest limitation rules and anti-hybrid rules. A comparative analysis of implementation issues in four leading Member States--Germany, Italy, Spain and The Netherlands--as well as a global general survey with regard to interest limitation rules allow readers to assess the particular complexities associated to the implementation of the ATAD. This matchless commentary by leading European tax law academics and practitioners on an important and much-debated item of EU legislation gives practitioners, enterprises and tax authorities an early opportunity to understand the practical effects of the directive in the various Member States.
An inherently interdisciplinary subject, tax avoidance has attracted growing interest of scholars in many fields. No longer limited to law and accounting, research increasingly has been conducted from other perspectives, such as anthropology, business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and economic psychology. This was –recently stimulated by politicians, mass media, and the public focussing on tax avoidance after the global financial and economic crisis put a squeeze on private and public finances. New challenges were posed by changing definitions and controversies in the interpretation of tax avoidance concept, as well as a host of new rules and policies that need to be fully understood. This collection provides a comprehensive guide to students and academics on the subjects of tax avoidance from an interdisciplinary perspective, exploring the areas of accounting, law, economics, psychology, and sociology. It covers global as well as regional issues, presents a discussion of the definition, legality, morality, and psychology of tax avoidance, and provides guidance on measurement of economic effect of tax avoidance activities. With a truly international selection of authors from the UK, North America, Africa, Asia, Australasia, Middle East, and continental Europe, with well-known experts and rising stars of the field, the contributors cover the entire terrain of this important topic. The Routledge Companion to Tax Avoidance Research is a ground-breaking attempt to bring together scholarly research in tax avoidance, offering rigorous academic analysis of an important and hotly debated issue in a structured and balanced way.
Tax avoidance continues to attract attention globally with strong support for tax law reform at all levels. This Tax Law IMF Technical Note focuses on some of the key design and drafting considerations of one specific legal instrument (being, a statutory general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR)) which is often considered by authorities to combat unacceptable tax avoidance practices. A GAAR is typically designed to strike down those otherwise lawful practices that are found to be carried out in a manner which undermines the intention of the tax law such as where a taxpayer has misused or abused that law. However, the objective of combating unacceptable tax avoidance can itself make the legal design of a GAAR complex. This is simply because the phrase “tax avoidance” means different things to different people. Whatever the form of a GAAR, it should give effect to a policy that seeks to strike down blatant, artificial or contrived arrangements which are tax driven. However, the GAAR should be designed and applied so as not to inhibit or impede ordinary commercial transactions. This Tax Law IMF Technical Note discusses and explores how drawing a line between those arrangements which should be caught by the GAAR is a matter of degree and can be delicate.
General anti-avoidance rules (GAARs) have been a topic of great relevance in practice as well as in academia for decades. In a post-BEPS tax world, with national legislators introducing or tightening GAARs, and with the European Union and OECD suggesting implementation of such rules, the topic seems more important than ever. The aim of this book is to give tax policymakers, tax authorities, tax courts and tax practitioners an idea of the various understandings of and approaches towards tax avoidance in 39 countries.
This paper reviews the rapidly growing empirical literature on international tax avoidance by multinational corporations. It surveys evidence on main channels of corporate tax avoidance including transfer mispricing, international debt shifting, treaty shopping, tax deferral and corporate inversions. Moreover, it performs a meta analysis of the extensive literature that estimates the overall size of profit shifting. We find that the literature suggests that, on average, a 1 percentage-point lower corporate tax rate will expand before-tax income by 1 percent—an effect that is larger than reported as the consensus estimate in previous surveys and tends to be increasing over time. The literature on tax avoidance still has several unresolved puzzles and blind spots that require further research.
Schwarz on Tax Treaties is the definitive analysis of tax treaties from United Kingdom and Irish perspectives and provides in-depth expert analysis of the interpretation and interaction of those treaty networks with the European Union and international law. The sixth edition significantly develops the earlier work with enhanced commentary and is updated to include the latest UK, Irish domestic and treaty developments, international and EU law, including: Covered Tax Agreements modified by the BEPS Multilateral Instrument; judicial decisions of Ireland, the UK and foreign courts on UK and Irish treaties; Digital Services Tax; treaty binding compulsory arbitration; Brexit and the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement; taxpayer rights in exchange of information; taxpayer rights in EU cross-border collection of taxes; attribution of profits to permanent establishments; and EU DAC 6 Disclosure of cross-border planning. Case law developments including: UK Supreme Court in Fowler v HMRC; Indian Supreme Court in Engineering Analysis Centre of Excellence Private Limited and Others v CIT; Australian Full Federal Court in Addy v CoT; French Supreme Administrative Court in Valueclick; English Court of Appeal in Irish Bank Resolution Corporation v HMRC; JJ Management and others v HMRC; United States Tax Court in Adams Challenge v CIR; UK Tax Tribunals in Royal Bank of Canada v HMRC; Lloyd-Webber v HMRC; Esso Exploration and Production v HMRC; Glencore v HMRC; McCabe v HMRC; Padfield v HMRC; Davies v HMRC; Uddin v HMRC; English High Court in Minera Las Bambas v Glencore; Kotton v First Tier Tribunal; and CJEU in N Luxembourg I, and others (the ‘Danish beneficial ownership cases’); État belge v Pantochim; College Pension Plan of British Columbia v Finanzamt München; HB v Istituto Nazionale della Previdenza Sociale. About the Author Jonathan Schwarz BA, LLB (Witwatersrand), LLM (UC Berkeley), FTII is an English Barrister at Temple Tax Chambers in London and is also a South African Advocate and a Canadian and Irish Barrister. His practice focuses on international tax disputes as counsel and as an expert and advises on solving cross-border tax problems. He is a Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Law, King’s College London University. He has been listed as a leading tax Barrister in both the Legal 500, for international corporate tax, and Chambers’ Guide to the Legal Profession, for international transactions and particular expertise in transfer pricing. He has been lauded in Who’s Who Legal, UK Bar for his ‘brilliant’ handling of cross-border tax problems. In Chambers Guide, he is identified as ‘the double tax guru’ with ‘extraordinary depth of knowledge and experience when it comes to tax treaty issues and is a creative thinker and a clear and meticulous writer’.
Compilation of 23 national reports dealing with domestic CFC provisions and the influence of tax treaties and EC law on CFC legislation and a summarising general report, originating from a joint conference on CFC legislation in Rust (Austria) from 3-6 July 2003.