This book describes anti-avoidance issues in three major developing nations (India, Brazil, and South Africa) and analyses all relevant case law pertaining to relatively successful general anti-avoidance rules (GAARs) in such developed jurisdictions as the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Hong Kong, France and Spain. It is based on analysis of more than 100 cases and over 500 legal references, as well as statutory legislation and administrative guidelines. The book shows why developing countries need their own tailor-made anti-avoidance systems, and it describes the features of GAARs relevant to developing countries, including the fastest routes, the paths that require caution and the directions to avoid.
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.
World Development Indicators 2016 provides a compilation of relevant, high-quality, and internationally comparable statistics about global development and the fight against poverty. It is intended to help policymakers, students, analysts, professors, program managers, and citizens find and use data related to all aspects of development, including those that help monitor progress toward the World Bank Group’s two goals of ending poverty and promoting shared prosperity. Six themes are used to organize indicators—world view, people, environment, economy, states and markets, and global links. WDI 2016 includes: •A selection of the most popular indicators across 214 economies and 14 country groups organized into six WDI themes •A new section on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has replaced the one on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). •The SDG section covers all 17 goals, and important targets to achieve these goals. Each goal has been presented in a maximum 2-page spread with selected indicators to explain the targets. •Each of the remaining sections includes an introduction, a map, a table of the most relevant and popular indicators for that theme together with a discussion of indicator compilation methodology. •A user guide describing resources available online and on mobile apps. Download the WDI DataFinder Mobile App and other Data Apps at data.worldbank.org/apps. WDI DataFinder is a mobile app for browsing the current WDI database on smartphones and tablets, using iOS and Android, available in four languages: English, French, Spanish, and Chinese. Use the app to: •Browse data using the structure of the WDI •Visually compare countries and indicators •Create, edit, and save customized tables, charts, and maps •Share what you create on Twitter, Facebook, and via email
This report presents studies and data available regarding the existence and magnitude of base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS), and contains an overview of global developments that have an impact on corporate tax matters.
This report is the ninth edition of the OECD's Tax Administration Series. It provides internationally comparative data on aspects of tax systems and their administration in 59 advanced and emerging economies.
Tax avoidance and evasion have an important effect on the economic development of every economy. Developing economies are particularly vulnerable to tax avoidance and evasion due to inadequacies in their institutional framework and the lack of sufficient expertise and resources to monitor the intricacies of this issue. Given the far-reaching effect of revenue losses due to tax noncompliance, many developing countries have undertaken tax reforms to improve their tax administration and implemented various anti-avoidance measures to combat tax evasion. This book provides an overview of recent tax reforms and institutional frameworks of four major developing economies, China, India, Brazil, and Mexico, with a focus on China. Most important, this book investigates the tax avoidance behaviors as well as their anti-avoidance legislation. In particular, this book includes an in-depth empirical study on tax noncompliance behaviors of foreign investors detected by the Chinese tax authorities. The empirical evidence on how tax policy and other corporate factors affect tax avoidance behavior helps public policy makers improve tax compliance through designing legislative and administrative measures. Though the findings pertain to China, the largest developing economy, the results should be a useful reference for other developing countries.
An in-depth analysis of the specific aspects of justice, equality and tax law "Justice, Equality and Tax Law" is a topic that is both old and new at the same time. Even if the society changes, the demands that tax needs to be just and equal seem to be immutable. What changes, of course, is the perception of the content of those demands. International taxation post-BEPS has been fraught with new challenges that warranted urgent responses. These challenges were mainly provoked by the unprecedented rise of the digital economy which truly marked a change in the way business is conducted, how value is created, and how goods and services are produced and consumed. Digitalization, in turn, had repercussions on all aspects of taxation - direct taxation, indirect taxation, and even tax procedures. For instance, the quest for more justice and equality in profit taxes was the reason why, in October 2021, a historical deal based on a two-pillar solution to address the tax challenges arising from the digitalization of the economy was negotiated within the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting and agreed upon by 137 member countries. It was also the motive behind the shift from a typical vendor collection model to an intermediary collection model supported by centralized registration points in indirect taxes, notably the VAT/GST. Abundant data from the European Union or the OECD signalized an ever-increasing gap between expected VAT revenues and VAT actually collected, making it obvious that the classical system of VAT/GST collection was unable to respond to challenges posed by the digital economy. Therefore, new solutions based on the participation of digital platforms as intermediaries had been introduced. Finally, new technologies, such as blockchain, paved new avenues in enhancing tax compliance. In this context, this volume entitled "Justice, Equality, and Tax Law" contains not only a selection of the best master ́s theses of the full-time LL.M. programme in 2021/2022 but also represents an in-depth analysis of various aspects of this evergreen topic.
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.
Increasingly, the consequences of globalization call for the involvement not only of national governments but of the international development community as a whole. Such involvement needs to occur within a comprehensive framework that encompasses stakeholders from government, non-governmental organizations, and businesses acting together in partnership. This requires the leveraging of general aid and country-focused development resources along with encouraging private financing participation. 'International Public Goods' explains different ways that this type of framework might be structured and focuses on different financing strategies that can be developed. It acknowledges the value of country specific efforts while recommending a multi-national approach to addressing problems resulting from globalization. This book evaluates the concepts fundamental to the term ?public goods? and details alternative governance structures including the role of incentives.
The Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (MLI) is the most forceful multilateral initiative to coordinate tax regimes on a worldwide basis since the dawn of modern income taxation over a century ago. This book evaluates two radically opposed viewpoints on the convention—a momentous and revolutionary paradigm shift versus a mechanism that merely continues an ongoing flow of limited policy coordination—with detailed investigations that bring to life the hopes and the realities of the current era of multilateral tax cooperation. Bringing together authors from national jurisdictions across the globe to scrutinize the MLI and its likely future ramifications, the book provides in-depth commentary and analysis in the following sequence: first, a comprehensive discussion of the design and goals of the MLI as a treaty and an institutional framework; second, an overview of the structure of the convention and its take-up across the globe to date; and third, the substantive implementation of the MLI with a wide range of country reports. Practice areas covered include tax law, international law, and international relations. The legal workings and implications of the MLI might still seem mysterious to those whose daily work is impacted by it, and there is as yet little jurisprudence regarding its legal nature or ultimate effect on the bilateral treaties coming within its scope. For these reasons, this pathbreaking book will be warmly welcomed by in-house counsel and law firms advising cross-border investors and firms; nongovernmental organizations involved in policy analysis and issue advocacy; researchers working on technical areas of international tax law; and lawyers interested in international policymaking, including the creation and diffusion of consensus-based fiscal and related regulatory norms across jurisdictions of differing development levels.
