The Legal Status Of The Oecd Commentaries

Since the mid-1980s, the legal basis of the practice of tax administrations and courts around the world to conform to the Commentaries when interpreting and applying bilateral tax treaties based on the OECD Model has been the subject of an ongoing academic debate. Recently the debate has received new impetus, and the primary focus is now on the general principles of international law. In particular, opinions differ on the question whether the Commentaries can be a source of legal obligations through the principles of acquiescence and estoppel, both of which are founded on considerations of good faith, and equity and provide specific protection of settled expectations. The reports contained in this book address two questions. The first is whether, under international law, the states parties to a tax treaty are legally bound by the OECD Commentaries when interpreting and applying the provisions of the treaty which are identical to those of the OECD Model. The second question is whether, under the contracting states' internal law, taxpayers and the tax authorities are equally bound to apply the Commentaries if and when the contracting states themselves are so bound under international law. The book brings various legal disciplines - public international law, international tax law, Community law and constitutional law - together in order to resolve the legal status of the Commentaries. Through interdisciplinary debate, the issues have been defined clearly and the exact points at which the opinions differ are identified, thereby resulting in a better understanding of the issues at hand.

This is the tenth edition of the condensed version of the "OECD Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital". It contains the full text of the "Model Tax Convention on Income and Capital" as it read on 21 November 2017, but without the historical notes and the background reports included...

Judicial Interpretation of Tax Treaties is a detailed analytical guide to the interpretation of tax treaties at the national level. The book focuses on how domestic courts interpret and apply the OECD Commentary to OECD Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital. Adopting a global perspective, the book gives a systematic presentation of the main interpretive proposals put forward by the OECD Commentary, and analyses selected cases decided in domestic tax systems in order to assess whether and how such solutions are adopted through national judicial process, and indeed which of these are of most practical value. The book operates on two levels: firstly it sets out a clear and comprehensive framework of tax treaty law, which will be an important tool for any tax practitioner. Secondly, the book provides crucial guidance on issues of tax treaty law as applied at domestic level, such as investment or business income, dispute resolution and administrative cooperation.

This publication is the tenth edition of the full version of the OECD Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital. This full version contains the full text of the Model Tax Convention as it read on 21 November 2017, including the Articles, Commentaries, non-member economies’ positions, ...

This publication contains the following four parts: A model Competent Authority Agreement (CAA) for the automatic exchange of CRS information; the Common Reporting Standard; the Commentaries on the CAA and the CRS; and the CRS XML Schema User Guide.