Review of International Commercial Tax by Peter Harris and David Oliver

Commercial transactions increasingly span multiple jurisdictions, responding to the needs of multinational corporations operating in the globalized environment of the post–Cold War economic reality. In response, tax laws both within and among leading commercial jurisdictions have added layers of complexity in recent decades, while also attempting to deal with highly specialized commercial structures and transactions. The result is the body of current international tax law that is renowned for its complexity and intricacy, often serving as the longest statute in many jurisdictions’ commercial regulatory structures.1 While tax law is an attempt at pragmatic solutions to the contemporary system of economic incentives, taxation statutes often represent the political, historical, and economic interests of the jurisdictions in which they operate. This amalgam of factors adds a further layer of miscomprehension to the current regime, where bilateral tax treaties, multinational model agreements, and supranational judicial structures (e.g. the European Court of Justice, or ECJ) all shape critical principles of how internationally active corporations and individuals navigate their transactional decisions. Because tax laws ultimately serve the real world interests of private enterprises and individuals, it is necessary for tax practitioners, students, and individuals engaged in transnational business to understand the framework in which these rules operate. Given that over 2,500 double tax treaties are currently in effect worldwide, international taxation issues are often complicated as much by the interplay of rules between a jurisdiction’s agreements with other countries as the rules active within its own borders.2 These tax treaties attempt to prevent double taxation of individuals and businesses that operate in multiple jurisdictions, often by either exempting or crediting taxes paid in the country where the income is derived (i.e. the source country) to taxes that are nominally