World news
OECD makes blanket change to double tax treaties
In November 2016, OECD released a multilateral convention that will affect the application of double tax treaties. The instrument implements the outcomes of the BEPS Action Plan into more than 2 000 tax treaties. A signing ceremony has been planned…
New international treaties to alter withholding tax amounts
In 2016, the Czech Republic entered into two new double-taxation treaties and several agreements on the exchange of tax information and cooperation in tax matters. As a result, the amount of withholding tax on payments made to persons in the…
ECOFIN postpones extension of ATAD
At their December session, the EU finance ministers (ECOFIN) negotiated the anti-tax avoidance directive, ATAD2. Some issues remain open, such as the financial sector’s exception from the rules and the member states’ date of transposition of the new…
OECD releases a multilateral instrument to modify double taxation treaties
Late in November, more than 100 states concluded negotiations on the wording of a new multilateral convention, which is an important part of the OECD’s action plan against base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS). This multilateral instrument will…
European Commission to overhaul corporate taxation
In late October, the European Commission released its proposal for major corporate tax reform. The package contains three areas: the common (consolidated) corporate tax base (CC(C)TB), mechanisms to resolve double taxation disputes, and measures to…
Ireland to appeal against the EC’s Apple ruling
In September, the European Commission ruled that Ireland had granted an undue tax advantage of EUR 13 billion to Apple, which it now has to recover from the company. In early October, the Irish finance minister prepared an appeal against the EC’s…
G20/OECD revise their programmes to facilitate dispute resolution between tax…
In October, the OECD released key documents that form the basis of the Mutual Agreement Procedure (MAP) peer review and monitoring process under Action 14 of the BEPS Action Plan.
First step towards a new EU list of third country jurisdictions
On 12 September, the European Commission presented a scoreboard of third country jurisdictions containing indicators monitoring their tax administrations’ best practices. It is the first step towards a common EU list of uncooperating jurisdictions.…