An ideological critique of the OECD’s BEPS Action Plan

Abstract

ABSTRACT ‘Ideology' is a central concept in critical approaches to law. After a brief overview of the aspects of ideology, I propose a restricted concept, synonymous with a social discourse that establishes a certain view of social life in order to create, maintain, and consolidate social relationships. I then provide an introduction to the ideological analysis of law, revealing the function of ideology as creator of the beliefs that sustain the legislation and the reproduction of law through adjudication. Based on this, I analyse the BEPS Action Plan of the OECD, and the documents issued to provide rationales for its proposed actions. I thus critically show how a factual context is ideologically created for the BEPS Plan through the distortion or omission of crucial features of the workings of the global capitalist system. That is the case of the defence of the supposedly ‘general and worldwide benefits of globalisation,' the aim of a ‘fair taxation' of multinational enterprises, the omission of direct production activities in the design of a criterion for assigning taxation power, etc. The article also focuses on the role played by the plan’s explanatory documents in the drafting of national legislations and the resolution of judicial disputes