This book provides an insight into business structuring and the related tax considerations. It covers all important aspects of fixed place of business and dependent agency types of PE, as well as the exceptions for independent agents, permitted ancillary activities, and parent-subsidiary relationships. It provides commentary on applicable rules and discusses regulations and case law from multiple jurisdictions. This new edition has entirely new chapters on e-commerce, supply chain and contract manufacturing structures and service PEs; updates of model treaty changes and PE rulings globally; and features implications of new developments in mineral extraction, real estate leasing and construction management. The book identifies key PE rulings not only in OECD countries, but also in the emerging BRIC countries.
Permanent Establishments (PEs) are a key facet of international taxation. They constitute the crucial threshold for the assignment of taxing rights to a jurisdiction in all cases of enterprises operating in more than one country. The issue of whether there is a PE, and how much profit should be allocated to it, is an increasingly important factor in tax planning, tax accounting, tax compliance, and related tax risk management. Groundbreaking developments have reshaped the face of the classical PE concept during the year 2017. Following action item no. 7 of the Anti-BEPS efforts of G20 and OECD, the OECD has presented the Multilateral Instrument (MLI) on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting in June 2017. Based on the MLI as well as earlier drafts, Article 5 of the OECD Model Tax Convention and the Official Commentary have been amended in November 2017. Similarly, Article 7 of the OECD Model Tax Convention on the allocation of income in PE situations is influenced by the October 2015 OECD BEPS proposals. This academically rigorous yet thoroughly practical work provides comprehensive guidance on a variety of complex PE issues. Its initial chapters analyse the latest OECD and EU developments in the context of Articles 5 and 7 of the OECD Model Tax Convention. 21 country chapters cover domestic PE issues as well as country-specific treaty developments from a practical perspective. Contributors: Fabrizio Acerbis, Maret Ansperi, Yumiko Arai, Ákos Burján, Anna Berglund, Peter Collins, Mike Cooper, David Cuellar, Veronika Daurer, Frank Feng, Mikhail Filinov, Sandra Fleurier, Jose Antonio Gonzalez, Herbert Greinecker, Søren Jesper Hansen, Lars Ellegård Holst, Mauricio Hurtado, Martin Jann, Renaud Jouffroy, David Lermer, Peter Lindblad, Iren Lipre, Jessica Ma, Anna Mallol, Dennis Matthijs, Hamish McElwee, Kunal Mehta, Osman Mollagee, Matthew Mui, Ramón Mullerat, Luis Felipe Muñoz, Stephen Nauheim, Francesco Nuzzolo, Yoshiyasu Okada, Marianne Orell, Oren Penn, Martin Poulsen, Lene Munk Rasmussen, Ekkehart Reimer, Daniel Rinke, Stefan Schmid, Mathias Schreiber, Vishal J. Shah, Smit Sheth, Tom Stuer, Maarten Temmerman, Eszter Turcsik, Hein Vermeulen, Huili Wang, Sonia Watson, Ciska Wisman, Raymond Wong & Alan Yam.
The OECD’s guidance on combatting tax avoidance strategies associated with Base Erosion and Profit Sharing (BEPS) methods is complex and accompanied by a wealth of literature. This book is the first to provide a concise and accessible overview of counter BEPS measures in the OECD Model and Commentary, allowing readers to gain a practical understanding of how the measures can impact the taxation of bilateral investments protected by tax treaties.
A new edition of the preeminent work on the permanent establishment (PE) is a major event in tax law scholarship. Taking into account changes in judicial and administrative practice as well as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD’s) and the United Nation’s (UN’s) work in the three decades since the first edition, the present study brings the analysis up to date with the current internationally accepted interpretation of PE. The analysis is based on more than 720 cases from more than 20 countries, in addition to the OECD and UN model treaties and more than 630 books, articles, and official documents. The increased significance of the digital economy has rendered the traditional concept of PE inadequate for the allocation of taxing jurisdiction over the modern, mobile or digital international business. The author’s in-depth analysis explains the legal elements of the PE principle with attention to their continuing benefit and their shortcomings: criteria defining a PE- place of business, location, right of use, duration, business connection, business activity, ordinary course of business; evidence of a right of use to a place of business; business activities included in the PE concept of the tax treaties; identification of projects offshore and onshore; UN model treaty deviations from the OECD agency clause; distinction between jurisdictions with significant natural resources and countries possessing the capital, technology and know-how necessary to explore and exploit these resources; and how policies in each country may erode the PE concept. The book provides many synopses of court decisions and administrative rulings upon which the analysis is based. In addition to cases previously published in law reports and other publications, a number of unpublished decisions are included. A key word index makes it easy to find what is needed in any particular matter. The PE principle, in one version or another, is used in several thousand tax treaties in force today. This updated comprehensive study reveals the obligations imposed through the use of PE in tax treaties and will continue to be of immeasurable value to tax practitioners and scholars worldwide. In addition, the discussion of whether the notion of PE is an appropriate criterion for taxing jurisdiction in international fiscal law today provides authoritative and insightful food for thought.
This report includes changes to the definition of permanent establishment in the OECD Model Tax Convention that will address strategies used to avoid having a taxable presence in a country under tax treaties. These changes will ensure that where the activities that an intermediary exercises in a country are intended to result in the regular conclusion of contracts to be performed by a foreign enterprise, that enterprise will be considered to have a taxable presence in that country unless the intermediary is performing these activities in the course of an independent business. The changes will also restrict the application of a number of exceptions to the definition of permanent establishment to activities that are preparatory or auxiliary nature and will ensure that it is not possible to take advantage of these exceptions by the fragmentation of a cohesive operating business into several small operations; they will also address situations where the exception applicable to construction sites is circumvented through the splitting-up contracts between closely related enterprises.
Addressing base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) is a key priority of governments. In 2013, OECD and G20 countries, working together on an equal footing, adopted a 15-point Action Plan to address BEPS. This publication is the final report for Action 7.
This is the tenth edition of the condensed version of the "OECD Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital". It contains the full text of the "Model Tax Convention on Income and Capital" as it read on 21 November 2017, but without the historical notes and the background reports included...
This publication is the tenth edition of the full version of the OECD Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital. This full version contains the full text of the Model Tax Convention as it read on 21 November 2017, including the Articles, Commentaries, non-member economies’ positions, ...
This work is the result of an extensive research into the permanent establishment concept, a concept that plays a vital role within the international taxation system through the fair allocation of taxing rights over cross-border business profits in the context of the tenuous balance between the residence and source principles, as a threshold for source taxation. Our research sought to explore and explain the evolution of this concept in the context of recent changes resulting from the joint work of the G20 and the OECD, namely under the aegis of the BEPS Project (Action 7), and later with the enactment of the Multilateral Instrument and the update to the OECD Model Convention. We also address the Portuguese permanent establishment concept and, finally, the future of the permanent establishment concept within the international taxation system.
The effects of the growth of multinational enterprises and globalization in the past fifty years have been profound, and many multinational enterprises, such as international banks, now operate around the world through branches known as permanent establishments. The business profits article (Article 7) of the OECD model tax treaty attributes a multinational enterprise's business profits to a permanent establishment in a host country for tax purposes. Michael Kobetsky analyses the principles for allocating the profits of multinational enterprises to permanent establishments under this article, explains the shortcomings of the current arm's length principle for attributing business profits to permanent establishments and considers the alternative method of formulary apportionment for allocating business profits.
