Justice, Equality and Tax Law

S. 2041. Introduction

The source of international law can be found in Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice. In international law, customs and treaties are the most important law-creating sources. The term ‘international tax law’ is used to describe cross-border situations in the field of taxation. The concept of the permanent establishment (PE) has a history as long as the history of tax treaties and is recorded as far back as the late 1800s. The modern concept of a PE was created after World War I. The developed PE concept was first enshrined in the Model Tax Convention of 1972.

In 2015, the OECD published the Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS). The report includes 15 actions to address BEPS and was to be implemented voluntarily in different countries. The aim of BEPS was to mitigate double taxation and to avoid double non-taxation. Finally, more than 130 states have joined and signed the BEPS minimum standards to create a new international tax law framework. The latest version of BEPS reported by the OECD under Action 7 addresses the prevention of the artificial avoidance of the PE status. The OECD changed the definition in Article 5 of the ...