Limits to Tax Planning

S. 7Editor ‘s preface

The present volume comprises the master theses of the part time class of 2011/13 of the postgraduate LLM program “International Tax Law” at WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business). The topics of all individual theses root in one common general topic: Limits to Tax Planning.

International tax planning and its limits have continuously been hot topics in the academia as well as in tax practice over the last years. Tax planning may affect both, a taxpayer’s overall tax burden and the revenues of the countries in which the taxpayer is doing business. Naturally, these countries and their tax authorities are focusing on measures that shield their tax revenues from international tax planning. Especially nowadays, the topic of tax planning and its limits is therefore increasingly in the focus of these countries as well as of international organizations, such as the OECD.

This book provides for an analysis of various measures and phenomena of tax planning, such as corporate residence, the set-up of partnerships and holding companies, transfer pricing, and the shopping into tax treaties, specific tax treaty rules and EU Directives. The main focus of this book lies on...