Thesis (M.Com. Taxation) -- University of Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, School of Accountancy, 2014. / The taxation of dividends at shareholder level has been the norm in the majority of the international market. South Africa is a developing country that is constantly increasing its market share in the international stage and in order to be more competitive in the international market South Africa has to align itself with international norms and practices and this resulted, amongst other things, with the introduction of dividends tax in 2012. This study analysed the new dividends tax legislation that became effective on 1 April 2012 in South Africa, by way of a normative literature review, and briefly discusses how South Africa compares with Russia, India and China, three other developing countries. The literature review confirmed the benefits with regards to the dividends tax system; however, the review also confirmed that there are challenges within the dividends tax system. The benefits of the dividends tax system that were noted include amongst others; aligning South Africa with international tax norms, the increased tax base and the establishment of a familiar withholding tax system that can attract more foreign investment. The levying of dividends tax on beneficial owners results in an increased tax base because the number of taxpayers increases to companies and individuals, versus levying secondary tax on companies only on the companies paying the dividend. Some of the challenges of the dividends tax system are the administrative burden placed on companies and regulated intermediaries, the rate of 15% might be considered to be too high in comparison to other developing countries and the taxation of dividends in the hands of the individuals might be a disincentive to invest in equity shares. South African legislation on dividends tax differs from that of China; with the latter country taxing the dividends in the hands of the beneficial owners without a requirement on company‘s paying the dividend to withhold the dividends tax. The Russian legislation on taxation of dividends is similar to that of South Africa but taxes the dividend on the net amount. In India the dividend distribution tax is levied in the company making a dividend distribution.

Begreppet beneficial owner finns i artiklarna 10, 11 och 12 i OECD:s modellavtal och är viktigt då det krävs att en part utgör beneficial owner för att denne ska ha rätt till den skattelättnad som erbjuds i de relevanta artiklarna. Då begreppet är oklart har OECD gett ut förslag på nya kommentarer till det i avsikt att klargöra dess innebörd. Uppsatsens syfte är att utreda innebörden av beneficial owner i artiklarna 10, 11 och 12 i OECD:s modellavtal från ett tolknings och tillämpnings perspektiv. Av utredningen framkom att begreppet enbart bör tolkas enligt modellavtalet och att det ska tillämpas i situationer, i vilket en mottagare av en inkomst har en skyldighet relaterad till att vidarebefordra inkomsten till en annan part och därför agerar som en mellanhandel. Om en part har en sådan skyldighet kan denne inte utgöra beneficial owner. I nuläget är dock termen relaterad oklar och författaren anser att den bör klargöras av OECD snarast. Vid utredningen om en part utgör beneficial owner bör först ett legalt tillvägagångsätt användas för att undersöka om det finns en skyldighet relaterad till att vidarebefordra inkomsten i partens legala dokument. Om detta inte hittas bör därefter både ett legalt och faktabaserat tillvägagångsätt användas, vid utredningen av fakta och omständigheter för att se om det finns substans som visar på att parten i praktiken är bunden (som om att parten hade en kontraktuell eller legal skyldighet) att vidarebefordra inkomsten.   Författarens slutsats blev att en part för att utgöra beneficial owner måste vara den som har rätten att använda den mottagna inkomsten efter vilja och även vara den som faktiskt åtnjuter de ekonomiska fördelarna av denna. Vidare måste parten också behandlas som ägaren till inkomsten i skattehänseende i hemviststaten, då en skattelättnad inte bör ges om det inte föreligger en risk för dubbelbeskattning. / The term beneficial owner is contained in articles 10, 11 and 12 in the OECD Model Tax Convention and is of importance since it is required that a party is the beneficial owner in order to be entitled to the tax relief offered in the relevant articles. Since the term is unclear, OECD has published proposals for new comments to clarify its meaning. The purpose of this study is to investigate the meaning of the term beneficial owner in articles 10, 11 and 12 in the OECD Model Tax Convention from an interpretation and application perspective. The investigation revealed that the term should only be interpreted in accordance with the OECD Model Tax Convention and that it aims at a recipient who has an obligation related to forwarding an income to another party and who is therefore acting as an intermediary. If a party has such an obligation, then he cannot be the beneficial owner. At present the term related is unclear and the author thinks that it should be clarified by the OECD as soon as possible. When investigating whether a party is the beneficial owner a legal approach should be used first to examine whether there is an obligation related to forwarding the income in the party's legal documents. If this is not found, then both a legal and factual approach should be used when examining the facts and circumstances in order to see if there is substance to show that the party is in practice bound (as if that party had a contractual or legal obligation) to forward the income. The author's conclusion is that a part to be the beneficial owner must be the one who has the right to use the received income as they wish and also be the one who actually enjoys the economic benefits of it. Furthermore, the party must also be treated as the owner of the income for tax purposes in the State of residence, since tax relief should not be given unless there is a risk of double taxation.

Diplomová práce: Beneficiární vlastník v daňovém právu Abstrakt v anglickém jazyce BENEFICIAL OWNER IN TAX LAW In many instances, the concept of beneficial owner can be found in tax law, enabling the taxpayers to lower the taxation of their income. Despite the fact that the term beneficial owner is not very commonly used in the Czech law, interpretation of this term is important part of the international tax law. Therefore, the purpose of my Theses is to review relevant laws (including Czech tax law, international tax law, European law, and relevant Czech and international court's decisions) to determine common characteristics of the term beneficial owner as it is used in the above mentioned fields of law. In the European law, the term beneficial owner can be found in two European directives - "Interest and royalty payments directive" and "Income savings directive". Although there are differences between the interpretation on the term beneficial owner in these European directives (based mostly on the fact that one directive is applicable to natural persons whereas the other one to legal entities), we can say that the purpose and aim of the regulation is the same. The OECD and its fiscal committee are concern with the interpretation and appropriate application of the term beneficial owner in the...

Money laundering and terrorist financing present major social problems that can negatively impact economic growth of both, the state and the households. The ever-increasing globalization and the trend of removing barriers to the free market make it harder for the authorities to detect and investigate abovementioned crimes. That is why, in recent years, efforts have been made to cooperate in the fight against money laundering, both globally and at European Union level. The European Union keeps constantly improving the AML/CTF legislation. Thanks to that, the Czech Republic can keep up with the rapidly evolving techniques the offenders come up with. This thesis present one of the new legal institutes in the Czech law - beneficial ownership. The idea of beneficial ownership came from the Directive 2015/849 that was implemented into the AML/CFT Act n. 253/2008. Under the Directive, corporates and other legal entities such as trusts will be required to maintain accurate and current information on their beneficial ownership. Beneficial owner is an entity that enjoys the possession and/or benefits of ownership (such as receipt of income). The first part of the thesis concerns the general anti-money laundering and combating financing of terrorism problematics. It also tackles the concept of ownership...

Money laundering is believed to have been around since the introduction of money. It is a vast, international problem which challenges law enforcement agencies and legislating authorities, as well as financial institutions and organizations of interest, all over the world. The past few years, something new has snuck up on law enforcement agencies and legislating authorities, namely Blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. This has caused a number of reactions, such as nations and international organizations quickly updating their anti-money laundering regulations. This goes to show how money laundering is constantly evolving, which makes targeting this crime a constant challenge. There is currently a lot of research being conducted on Money Laundering and specifically research on how to tackle the issue. What this study wishes to contribute with is an overview of the recently published (year 2020), available literature on the matter, to facilitate the continuous work on how to best prevent and detect this crime. The aim with this study is to look at already existing literature and to establish what the current focus is when combatting Money Laundering. It is based on three research questions; What are the three main focus’ areas? What are the challenges? How is anti-money laundering regulations tackling cryptocurrency? The method used is a narrative literature review and the search was conducted through Malmö University Electronic Library. Following explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria, the analysis was based on a total of 22 articles. The results show that the focus’ areas’ and challenges are; cryptocurrency and specifically the EU’s fifth anti-money laundering directive, challenges with international cooperation, and lastly, the role of financial institutions and identifying the beneficial owner.

The thesis deals with taxation of dividend income that is being paid out from or to the Czech Republic. It gives an insight into the international tax regulations and their impact on the Czech legislation. The thesis focuses on the definition of dividends and relevant tax procedures. Furthermore, it makes an assessment based on practical scenarios, on the extent of tax burden of persons, Czech tax residents that receive dividends; and the impact on Czech tax revenues in connection with dividend payout to different countries.