Doppelbesteuerung

Art. 5 MA Betriebstätte

Bearbeiter: Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Franz Wassermeyer und Prof. Dr. Christian Kaeser

A. Musterkommentar

1. The main use of the concept of a permanent establishment is to determine the right of a Contracting State to tax the profits of an enterprise of the other Contracting State. Under Article 7a Contracting State cannot tax the profits of an enterprise of the other Contracting State unless it carries on its business through a permanent establishment situated therein.

2. Before 2000, income from professional services and other activities of an independent character was dealt under a separate Article, i. e. Article 14. The provisions of that Article were similar to those applicable to business profits but it used the concept of fixed base rather than that of permanent establishment since it had originally been thought that the latter concept should be reserved to commercial and industrial activities. The elimination of Article 14 in 2000 reflected the fact that there were no intended differences between the concepts of permanent establishment, as used in Article 7, and fixed base, as used in Article 14, or between how profits were computed and tax was calculated acco...