Tax Treaty Case Law around the Globe 2025

S. 2961. Introduction

The term “beneficial owner” has been subject to litigation and academic research for many years and seems to be a never-ending story. Indeed, this chapter adds another branch to the tree of publications on this term. The Dutch Supreme Court’s (in Dutch: Hoge Raad) ruling to be discussed is a bit special because it shows the interaction of the beneficial owner interpretation in Dutch tax treaty law and Dutch national tax law. It could be held that this is a national tax law case because it concerns whether a Netherlands resident company was entitled to a tax credit in a stock-lending case of shares listed at the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (AEX) that depended on whether this resident could be qualified as the dividend’s beneficial owner. However, the author strongly believes that such an assessment is much too narrow as the Supreme Court based its decision specifically on its interpretation of the term beneficial owner in Dutch tax treaty law. Therefore, the author opines that this ruling should not only be considered as a decision on the national tax law term beneficial owner but also as further development of the tax treaty term in Dutch tax treaties. Therefore, the au...