Study on the question of harmonization of direct taxation among European Community Member States: how Member States must comply with EC Law as they apply their tax treaties, how EC law regulates cross-border tax issues within the Community, and how EC law affects tax treaties between EU Member States and third countries. The book provides expert commentary on 27 leading tax cases from the European Court of Justice, and gives the proposal of EC Model Tax Convention, which combines existing provisions of international tax law with the principles of Community tax law.

A wide variety of legal approaches and techniques are presented in detail. Includes 18 country reports - from 14 EU Member States plus Norway, Hungary, Latvia, and the Czech Republic - as well as additional essays on such topics as international tax arbitration, social security conventions, the jurisdiction of international courts, and World Bank/ICSID dispute settlement procedures as all of these may be applied to the resolution of tax disputers.

As European Union (EU) Member States seek to counteract base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) practices while avoiding new obstacles to the EU’s internal market such as double taxation, the credit method, also known as the foreign tax credit, is one of the essential tools in this balancing act, yet it is one that has given rise to various EU law challenges and questions. This invaluable book – the first in-depth study of the EU law constraints on designing the credit method – delineates the EU law boundaries within which the Member States must operate when they implement this method of tax relief. For the first time, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) cases that may affect, directly or indirectly, the credit method and its main components are systematically identified and analysed in order to extract the legal findings and principles that define the contours within which the Member States can manoeuvre when considering EU-compatible approaches to the credit method. To this end, among others, this book offers: an extensive study of the historical legal developments of the credit method; an overview of the key design features of the credit method, considering the optional, variable components, such as the credit limitation (maximum creditable amount), that tailor it to different legal and policy considerations; an analysis of the legal constraints on the key features of the credit method flowing from CJEU case law on the fundamental freedoms, considering the impact of landmark cases and concepts (e.g., Schumacker, neutralization); the EU law implications based on the type of credit method (direct, indirect, imputation) and the feature of the credit method (e.g., credit limitation, credit carryforward); and examples to clearly and concisely illustrate the basic operation of the credit method and some of the main calculation and EU law issues. The author’s doctoral dissertation, on which the book is based, was awarded the Wolfgang Gassner Science Prize 2020 and the European Doctoral Tax Thesis Award 2020. As a timely, comprehensive and practical study of the relationship between the credit method and EU law, this book will be welcomed by lawyers and other professionals working with taxation matters, as well as by tax policymakers and academics in the fields of international and European tax law.

Should the income of a corporate group be taxed differently solely because the traditional structure of the income tax system considers each company individually? Taxation affects business decisions, including location, the form in which business is carried out, and the efficient allocation of company resources. Disparities – differences arising from the interaction of different tax systems – and obstacles – distortions created by domestic legislation arising from differences between domestic and cross-border situations – both become more acute when a business chooses to set up or acquire other companies, thus forming a group, usually operating in multiple jurisdictions. Responding to such ever more common developments, this book is the first in-depth analysis of how tax treaties and EU law influence group taxation regimes. Among the issues and topics covered are the following: – analysis of the different tax group regimes adopted by different countries; – advantages and disadvantages of a variety of models; – application of the non-discrimination provision of Article 24 of the OECD Model Tax Convention to group taxation regimes; – application of the fundamental freedoms of the TFEU to group taxation regimes following the three-step approach adopted by the EU Court of Justice; – uncertainty raised by the landmark Marks & Spencer case, its interpretation and consequences to other group taxations regimes; – interrelations between tax treaties and EU Law in the context of tax groups; and – per-element approach. The analysis considers concrete examples as well as relevant case law. With its analysis of the standards required by the two sets of norms (tax treaties and EU law) and their interaction, particularly in terms of non-discrimination, this book sheds clear light on ways to overcome the disparities and obstacles inherent in group taxation regimes. As a thorough survey of the extent to which the interpretation of tax treaties and EU law affect group taxation regimes, this book has no peers. All taxation professionals, whether working in EU Member States or in EU trading partners, will appreciate its invaluable insights and guidance.