This thesis examines the concept of EU corporate tax abuse in light of the tensions between the protection of EU Fundamental rights and the susceptibility of those rights to abuse. Consideration is given to the major tax abuse practices and arrangements, accompanied by analyses of the responses of a selection of EU member states, and the role and impacts of judicial, state and commercial stakeholder interests. Consequent upon an examination of why past proposals have failed to attain either policy adoption or policy success, it is suggested that the legal concepts of abuse of rights, substance over form and proportionality may be of value in assessing and validating a corporate tax abuse proposal. It will be argued that Member State tax rules and policy initiatives to date have been unsuccessful in eradicating the effects of corporate tax abuse deriving from the exploitation of Fundamental Freedoms and that this failure is attributable to reasons of poor transactional data lineage and disclosure, unresolved political and judicial conflicts between balancing Member State rights with the Internal Market ideal and from a corporate culture that is incentivised to circumvent tax rules with limited recourse. Following an assessment of whether reform should focus on transactional based tax rules or on a broader legal framework to induce taxpayer behavioural changes, it is contended that EU corporate tax abuse can be addressed by rejecting the traditional ideals of tax harmonisation, formulary apportionment, and principles or rule-based tax law approaches as a complete solution. An effective scheme of reform should instead be based on Enhanced Disclosures and Attestation incorporating country-by-country reporting, additional reporting metrics and legal attestations, underpinned by civil and criminal penalties.

Corruption, Tax Abuse, and Financial Secrecy PhD Dissertation, Miroslav Palanský, IES CUNI, 2020 Abstract This dissertation is composed of three papers that focus on different aspects of the relationship between the public sector and individuals who do not comply with the norms and regulations set by the government. I classify the ways in which individuals do so into two categories - corruption and tax abuse. Corruption, defined as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain, results in individuals obtaining more benefits from the public sector than is intended. Tax abuse, on the other hand, is defined as contributing less to the public sector than is intended. The last chapter of the dissertation focuses on financial secrecy, which I argue is the key facilitator of the two channels. In Chapter 2, I show that companies that donate money to Czech political parties subsequently report abnormally high profits, pointing to preferential treatment that these firms enjoy as a result of their political connections: I conservatively estimate that the connected firms outperform their non-connected but otherwise similar competitors by 8 to 12% following the establishment of the connection, which is a higher effect than found previously for more developed economies. Importantly, however, I find that the effect...

The purpose of my thesis is to analyze and characterize circumvention of the law, real content of legal acts and abuse of law in relation to tax planning. To combat tax abuse tax administrator has these three instruments available which in turn set limits of tax planning. The thesis is composed of four chapters. Chapter One differentiates between tax planning, tax abuse and tax evasion as different methods of lowering tax liability. Chapter Two consists of four subchapters, first three containing analysis and characteristic of circumvention of the law, real contents of legal acts and abuse of law. Each of these subchapters builds upon general definition which is then refined by case law of the Supreme Administrative Court and concludes with typical cases. The fourth subchapter deals with "tax evasion by other means" which some authors consider a similar instrument. The third chapter summarizes the current legislative state of these instruments and offers some thoughts de lege ferenda. The fourth chapter contains deeper analysis of the most important case law relating to individual instruments. Chapter Four should serve the reader as a reference while reading Chapter Two. Thesis illustrates the most typical cases of each individual instrument and concludes that the abuse of law doctrine is the most...

Pour les contribuables détenteurs de titres en forte plus-value latente qui souhaitent, d’une part, utiliser leur valorisation pour réaliser de nouveaux investissements et, d’autre part, limiter l’impôt afférent à cette plus-value, une opération a été imaginée : l’apport-cession-délocalisation. Il s’agit pour le contribuable d’apporter ses titres à une société sous un régime de différé d’imposition – report ou sursis – avant que cette dernière ne les cède en franchise d’impôt. Ce faisant, la société bénéficiaire de l’apport peut réinvestir le prix de cession et le contribuable n’est imposé que lors de la cession ultérieure des titres reçus en échange de l’apport. Réalisé dans un cadre national, l’apport-cession n’octroie au contribuable qu’un délai dans l’établissement de l’impôt de plus-value mais combiné à une délocalisation du domicile fiscal, cette opération peut aboutir à sa diminution voire à sa suppression. Toutefois, la jurisprudence et le législateur sont intervenus afin d’encadrer cette opération en posant les conditions dans lesquelles elle serait abusive puis en instaurant un nouveau régime spécifique aux apports réalisés en faveur d’une société contrôlée par l’apporteur et en remettant en place un système d’exit tax. Certes, ces nouveaux encadrements impliquent l’adaptation des modalités de réalisation de l’opération et en limitent les effets, particulièrement l’exit tax, toutefois, l’opération demeure possible et avantageuse. En outre, certains aspects de l’exit tax peuvent être contestés au regard du droit de l’Union européenne et conventionnel de sorte que sa pérennité – et donc les limites qu’il implique dans le cadre de cette opération – est incertaine. / A dedicated three-step tax scheme has been designed for individuals holding assets with a latent capital gain; willing to reinvest their profits into other activities and reduce taxes on capital gains normally owed: Capital contribution of the assets held by this individual to a company in exchange of shares (Step 1), sales of those assets by the this company to a third-party (Step 2), relocation of the individual to another country (Step 3). The objective is for this individual to beneficiate from a deferred taxation on the capital contribution and for this company to sell assets on a tax-free basis. The company will therefore be able to reinvest the price from the assets sales and the individual will only be taxed when received shares are subsequently sold. In domestic situations, this tax scheme only offers deferral of taxes on capital gains ; but combined with the individual relocation, it enables to drastically reduce if not totally suppress taxes. Since then, legislators and judges have clearly identified conditions defining tax abuse, have defined new rules related to capital contribution to companies controlled by the contributor and have implemented exit-tax mechanisms. Despite this new legal framework, the studied tax scheme is still of significant interest. Additionally, some aspects of the exit-tax might certainly be challenged in regards to European Union law and European fiscal conventions.