Special Features of the UN Model Convention

1. S. 532Introduction

The national tax policy of developing countries generally aims to raise revenue through the collection of taxes as a mechanism of financing governmental expenditures whilst protecting their domestic tax base and enforcing policies on trade and investment that keeps their economy internationally competitive. In today’s globalized world where multinational enterprises engage in cross-border transactions, developing countries require strong measures to protect their tax base from abusive tax practices that have an overall negative consequence on the jurisdiction’s collection of public revenue. This is because developing countries are usually at the receiving end of direct investments from enterprises that are residents in developed countries which means that, in most cases, they are the source State in cross-border business operations.

The United Nations Model Double Taxation Convention between Developed and Developing Countries (UN MC) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital (OECD MC) use ‘permanent establishments’ (PE) as the internationally accepted instrument for the allocation of business profits b...