Tax Treaty Case Law around the Globe 2016

S. XIXPreface

Both the OECD Model Tax Convention on Income and Capital (OECD Model) and the United Nations Model Double Taxation Convention (UN Model) are designed as a tool for legislative harmonization and therefore often serve as a basis for tax treaty negotiations between different jurisdictions worldwide. At the same time, however, interpretation of a particular tax treaty provision may still differ from country to country due to a number of reasons. The risk of double/multiple (non-) taxation is therefore not fully removed and this will adversely affect the international exchange of goods and services and movements of capital, technology and persons. In order to increase a uniform interpretation of tax treaties worldwide and, hence, reduce the risk of double/multiple (non-) taxation, basic knowledge is needed on how various tax treaty issues are resolved by different jurisdictions. It is widely known that a unified approach to interpretation and application of international tax treaty rules may benefit not only the countries/parties to a certain tax treaty, but also their taxpayers, as well as international trade and investments in general. This topic is therefore an ongoing concern...