Priority Rules in Tax Treaties

Book overview

This book offers a thorough examination of current issues surrounding the interplay between various distributive rules in the OECD and UN Models.

Key themes and topics

To date, comprehensive academic studies on the priority relations between the different distributive rules in the OECD and UN Models have been lacking. However, the demarcation between individual provisions holds paramount significance for tax treaty application. The right of source states to tax has an influence on the choice of method used to prevent double taxation. In some cases, explicit priority rules regulate the precedence of distributive rules when the scopes of application between two (or more) distributive rules overlap. Other relations are not specifically dealt with in the OECD and UN Models and are implicit. In both cases, interpretive challenges emerge which can only be resolved by performing thorough analyses of the distributive rules in question.

The overall objective of this book is to address the relations between various distributive rules in a tangible and digestible way. This is framed under the following topics:

• the role and interplay of distributive rules in tax treaties;
• the relevance of article 7(4) of the OECD and UN Models;
• the significance of articles 10(4), 11(4), and 12(3) of the OECD Model;
• the relationship between articles 12A and 12B of the UN Model and other UN distributive rules;
• the different distributive rules for capital gains (article 13) and taxes on capital (article 22) in the OECD Model; and
• the OECD Model's rules on estates, inheritances, and gifts.