Patterns of Tax Treaty Disputes: A Global Taxonomy

Abstract

This chapter offers the first global taxonomy of treaty dispute patterns emerging in the almost first 100 years of the international tax regime (ITR). The time and space dimensions of the taxonomy are as follows. The time dimension covers the era which ran from 1923 — when four economists produced the League of Nations’ Report on Double Taxation proposing a legal technology that is now encapsulated in the OECD Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital (OECD MTC) — until 2015, when the G20 and the OECD published the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting 2015 Final Reports, which ‘represents the first substantial renovation of the international tax standards in almost a century’ (pre-BEPS Reports Era). The space dimension covers the G20 countries together with seven non-G20 countries: Cyprus, Hong Kong, Ireland, the Netherlands, Singapore, Switzerland and Uganda (the G20 and beyond).

Keywords: Tax Treaty Disputes, International Tax Regime, International Tax Law, Beneficial Owner, Tax Treaty Shopping