Multilateral Tax Treaty Revision to Combat Tax Avoidance: On the Merits and Limits of BEPS’s Multilateral Instrument

IF 4.5 3区 经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS
Antonia Hohmann, Valeria Merlo, Nadine Riedel
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Since 2015, more than 140 countries have cooperated in the OECD’s “Base Erosion and Profit Shifting” (BEPS) project to combat multinational tax avoidance. Several of the key actions, most importantly measures against tax-treaty shopping, require changes to double taxation treaties. The OECD designed a special instrument—the ‘multilateral instrument’ (MLI) - to allow for a swift implementation of BEPS-related tax treaty changes. In this paper, we show that MLI take-up is incomplete, we present (partly surprising) correlates of the take-up decision and develop a simple theoretical model to rationalize the observed take-up behavior. A key insight is that conduit countries, which are the beneficiaries of tax treaty shopping, can benefit from anti-treaty shopping laws as firms have incentives to scale-up real activity in conduit nations in order to be exempted from the new anti-treaty shopping rules. Empirical findings are consistent with these considerations: MLI adoption rates of conduit countries are high. Treaty shopping has, to date, not significantly dropped. And there is indeed indication that firms have scaled up their real economic activity in conduit nations. Overall, our findings reject that treaty shopping has been “killed” as envisaged by the OECD. JEL classification: F21, F23, F53, H25, H26, H32, H87, K34
修订多边税务条约以打击避税:关于 BEPS 多边文书的优点和局限性
自 2015 年以来,已有 140 多个国家在经合组织的 "税基侵蚀和利润转移"(BEPS)项目中开展合作,以打击跨国避税行为。其中有几项关键行动,最重要的是针对 "购税条约"(tax-treaty shopping)的措施,需要修改双重征税条约。经合组织设计了一种特殊工具--"多边工具"(MLI)--以便迅速实施与 BEPS 相关的税收协定变更。在本文中,我们表明 MLI 的采用是不完全的,我们提出了采用决定的相关因素(部分令人惊讶),并建立了一个简单的理论模型来合理解释观察到的采用行为。一个关键的见解是,作为税收协定选择受益者的导管国可以从反条约选择法中获益,因为企业有动力扩大在导管国的实际活动,以便免受新的反条约选择规则的约束。实证研究结果与这些考虑是一致的:渠道国采用多边投资协议的比例很高。迄今为止,条约规避并未明显减少。而且确实有迹象表明,企业扩大了在通道国的实际经济活动。总体而言,我们的研究结果否定了经合组织所设想的条约规避已被 "扼杀 "的说法。JEL 分类:F21, F23, F53, H25, H26, H32, H87, K34
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来源期刊
Economic Policy
Economic Policy ECONOMICS-
CiteScore
4.80
自引率
0.00%
发文量
41
期刊介绍: Economic Policy provides timely and authoritative analyses of the choices confronting policymakers. The subject matter ranges from the study of how individual markets can and should work to the broadest interactions in the world economy. Economic Policy features: Analysis of key issues as they emerge Views of top international economists Frontier thinking without technical jargon Wide-reaching coverage of worldwide policy debate
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