Tax Treaty Case Law around the Globe 2023

1. Introduction

The Austrian case discussed in this chapter was on the personal attribution of dividends, i.e. which taxpayer is seen for tax purposes as the recipient of a dividend as part of his taxable income. It was decided by the Austrian Supreme Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgerichtshof – VwGH) on 28 June 2022. This judgment was supposed to bring an end to a dispute that has lasted for several years at various stages of proceedings before the Austrian tax administration and the lower tax court (Bundesfinanzgericht – BFG).

That dispute was followed with interest even in public as it was about the attribution of dividends stemming from shares that were traded on the stock market closely before and after the annual dividend distribution when the shares either still carried a dividend entitlement (during the so-called “cum” period) or not (during the so-called “ex” period). The case was therefore labelled in the public perception as a “cum/ex” case. Not surprisingly, this has created a notion that the case S. 228was about an Austrian version of the rather infamous (if not notorious) “cum/ex” structures that led to the rather painful cum/ex scandal in Germany several years ago.

However,...