On 8 June 2012, National Treasury amended Regulation 10(1) (c) of the Exchange Control Regulations to specifically include intellectual property. In so doing, all companies wishing to dispace intellectual property to an offshore destination had to obtain prior approval from National Treasury. However, National Treasury is reticent to grant permission to reassign these assets, as revenue from intellectual property is perceived to contribute vastly to the South African tax revenue. This amendment came into being shortly after the dismissal in the Oilwell case. This case, in essence, held that intellectual property is not capital for the purposes intended by National Treasury, and therefore no prior approval to assign it offshore is required from National Treasury. This dismissal led to a large outflow of intellectual property to tax favourable foreign locations. At the same time, it exposed transfer pricing risks that had previously gone unnoticed. Although these risks have once again been mitigated by the amendment to Regulation 10(1) (c), it does not mean that it is now a thing of the past, best left forgotten. The South African government intends to relax or abolish all exchange control regulations in the future. At present the exact date when this is to take place is not known. Once the exchange control regulations are abolished, the transfer pricing risks associated with intellectual property will once again come to the forefront and will lead to significant loss to South African tax revenue. The three main risks that became apparent during the period before the amendment to Regulation 10(1) (c) are the following: * Transfer pricing risk consisting of mainly: - A lack of a comparables database to enable tax administrators to determine an appropriate arm’s length price for intellectual property. - A lack of the relevant skills, experience and knowledge required to accurately assess transfer prices of intellectual property. * Challenges in obtaining relevant, comprehensive and timely information to accurately determine arm’s length prices for intellectual property transactions. * A lack of understanding the principle of economic substance and legislation in South Africa to define economic substance parameters. * In this mini-dissertation, these weaknesses are discussed in more detail to highlight to SARS the trials it faces when the exchange controls regulations are expelled. Various ways in which these flaws can be challenged head-on are also presented. / MCom (South African and International Tax), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

On 8 June 2012, National Treasury amended Regulation 10(1) (c) of the Exchange Control Regulations to specifically include intellectual property. In so doing, all companies wishing to dispace intellectual property to an offshore destination had to obtain prior approval from National Treasury. However, National Treasury is reticent to grant permission to reassign these assets, as revenue from intellectual property is perceived to contribute vastly to the South African tax revenue. This amendment came into being shortly after the dismissal in the Oilwell case. This case, in essence, held that intellectual property is not capital for the purposes intended by National Treasury, and therefore no prior approval to assign it offshore is required from National Treasury. This dismissal led to a large outflow of intellectual property to tax favourable foreign locations. At the same time, it exposed transfer pricing risks that had previously gone unnoticed. Although these risks have once again been mitigated by the amendment to Regulation 10(1) (c), it does not mean that it is now a thing of the past, best left forgotten. The South African government intends to relax or abolish all exchange control regulations in the future. At present the exact date when this is to take place is not known. Once the exchange control regulations are abolished, the transfer pricing risks associated with intellectual property will once again come to the forefront and will lead to significant loss to South African tax revenue. The three main risks that became apparent during the period before the amendment to Regulation 10(1) (c) are the following: * Transfer pricing risk consisting of mainly: - A lack of a comparables database to enable tax administrators to determine an appropriate arm’s length price for intellectual property. - A lack of the relevant skills, experience and knowledge required to accurately assess transfer prices of intellectual property. * Challenges in obtaining relevant, comprehensive and timely information to accurately determine arm’s length prices for intellectual property transactions. * A lack of understanding the principle of economic substance and legislation in South Africa to define economic substance parameters. * In this mini-dissertation, these weaknesses are discussed in more detail to highlight to SARS the trials it faces when the exchange controls regulations are expelled. Various ways in which these flaws can be challenged head-on are also presented. / MCom (South African and International Tax), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

This diploma thesis deals with some questions of the international double taxation, particularly with the basic terminology and principles of the international taxation, bilateral double taxation treaties and new tools of legal regulation of the international double taxation such as BEPS, MLI, a package of European directions called Anti-BEPS and its implementation into the Czech law. The aim of this thesis is to identify, describe and analyse sectional questions in respect to long-term and current evolution. In the introduction I briefly introduce the topic. Afterwards the thesis is divided into four chapters that are linked to each other. The first chapter presents to the reader basic terminology and explains basic principles of this field independently and in relation to current legal regulation. Further I describe the types of double taxation and other institutes related to the international double taxation such as international double non-taxation. The second chapter deals with means of elimination of the international double taxation. Two basic methods are described and some of them are represented by basic examples. There are also described means of elimination of the international double taxation that can only be used in tax treaties (not in the national law). The last subchapter describes...

In this paper, the author analyzes the problematic of the aggressive tax planning, due to the lack of coherence between the tax rules of the different States and indicates the way in which the transfer pricing rule should be applied. Also, he analyzes the regulation of the anti-avoidance provision in the Tax Code and criticizes how the Supreme Court applies this anti-avoidance provision and the reasoning of the Tax Court to derive legal effects based on the economic content. / En el presente artículo, el autor analiza la problemática de la planificación fiscal agresiva, debido a la falta de coherencia entre las normas tributarias de los distintos Estados y señala la manera en que debe aplicarse la norma de precios de transferencia. Asimismo, analiza la regulación de la norma anti-elusiva en el Código Tributario y realiza una crítica respecto a cómo la Corte Suprema aplica esta norma anti-elusiva y el razonamiento del Tribunal Fiscal para derivar efectos jurídicos sobre la base del contenido económico.

The diploma thesis deals mainly with aggressive tax planning of multinational companies but also mentions the practices of domestic enterprises, which lead up to the reduction of the tax liability of the entity. The main idea of the thesis is a description of indicators and the analysis of structures of companies performing aggressive tax planning. The practical part of this thesis contains model examples, which can be realized and against which it is necessary to intervene. The last chapter describes measures by which the OECD and the European Union institutions are trying to eliminate the abuse of tax laws and bilateral treaties by multinational corporations. The Czech Republic has already implemented a number of measures against aggressive tax planning, which success in this diploma thesis is tested by comparing year-by-year revenues changes from corporate income tax.

The overall aim of this article is to analyse the taxpayers' rights in relation to the emerging standard of transparency with specific reference to Brazil, Colombia, South Africa and Uruguay. Exchange of information between tax authorities is increasing rapidly all around the world. This global development is largely the result of the introduction of the standard of transparency by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ("OECD") with the political mandate of the G20 and more recently, in 2013, the introduction of the global standard of automatic exchange of information. Governments have agreed that exchange of information is necessary to prevent tax evasion and to tackle tax avoidance including aggressive tax planning. All surveyed countries have accepted the standard of transparency including the standard of automatic exchange of information. Furthermore, it is evident that the development of such standards appears to have taken place in a coordinated manner, led mainly by international organizations comprising governmental officials. This article has first provided a comparative overview of the rules that Brazil, Colombia, South Africa and Uruguay have introduced to protect the taxpayers' rights in the exchange of information process being the right to access to public information, the right to confidentiality, the right to privacy, and the procedural rights (right to be informed, the right to be notified and right to object and appeal). Thereafter, this article has assessed whether the rules introduced by the surveyed countries to protect these rights are consistent with the fundamental taxpayers' rights that belong to the rule of law of these countries and with the principles of good governance and fiscal transparency. The main conclusion is that the countries have introduced to some extent similar rules to protect the right to confidentiality, right to privacy and the procedural rights in the exchange of information. However, some differences may be found in the detail level of protection of confidentiality in South Africa and in respect of the procedural rights in Uruguay. One of the drawbacks of these rules is that the rules introduced by the surveyed countries do not ensure that the protection of the right to confidentiality and the right to privacy is effectively guaranteed. The results of the analysis show that these rules do not protect the taxpayer in case of breach of confidentiality or misuse of the information exchanged. This article argues that the differences among rules and the lack of protection for taxpayer information may hinder the effective protection of the taxpayer and the tax administration should guarantee the protection of the taxpayer rights as part of the rule of law. Therefore, this article provides in Section 4 three recommendations addressing the right to confidentiality, the right to privacy and the taxpayers' procedural rights. These recommendations may be extended (as best practices) to other developing countries on a similar economic and legal scale. However, further research will be needed to see whether the conclusions of this article are also applicable to (other) developing countries. / Series: WU International Taxation Research Paper Series

This thesis is focusing on methods of tax optimization of international companies. These international concerns are endeavoring tax minimization. The disparity of the tax systems gives to these companies a possibility of profit and tax base shifting. At first this thesis compares the differences of tax optimization, aggressive tax planning and tax evasion. Among the areas of the optimization methods, which are described in this thesis, belongs tax residention, dividends, royalty payments, transfer pricing and the companies conversions. Because of the aggressive tax optimization are the public budgets shortened by million crowns. As a reaction many of guidelines and plans of international organizations has been written to worsen the possibilities of tax planning. The impacts on public budgets are shown and counted on the model example of fictive international company.

Multinational enterprises have been widely accused of using aggressive tax planning schemes to avoid paying tax all over the world. The purpose of this study is to analyse the methods used by multinational enterprises in the context of business restructurings to shift profits from high to low tax jurisdictions. Transactions between associated entities have generally been manipulated by applying non-arm’s length prices to these transactions, as well as devising agreements where the economic substance varies from the form of the transaction. The study aims to investigate some of the practical challenges faced by tax administrators in the application of the arm’s length principle. The study was conducted based on a literature review, as well as analysing specific examples reported in newspapers where multinational enterprises have used aggressive tax planning schemes to shift profits. International case law was also analysed to evaluate some of the factors considered by the courts in the determination of the arm’s length price. It was found that multinational enterprises definitely use aggressive tax planning schemes to shift profits. The practical challenges in the determination of arm’s length prices, complexity of the transactions involved, as well as a lack of resources, especially in the developing nations, are some of the factors that cause tax administrators to battle to find a solution to deter and detect these schemes. Other methods such as the unitary taxation method and the country by country reporting concept have been brought forward as alternatives to the arm’s length principle. These alternatives have been proposed in an effort to find a solution to the challenges posed by the arm’s length principle. Specific measures have also been recommended for developing nations’ tax administrators to resolve the issues that they currently experience in this context. / Thesis (MCom (South African and International Taxation))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

Multinational enterprises have been widely accused of using aggressive tax planning schemes to avoid paying tax all over the world. The purpose of this study is to analyse the methods used by multinational enterprises in the context of business restructurings to shift profits from high to low tax jurisdictions. Transactions between associated entities have generally been manipulated by applying non-arm’s length prices to these transactions, as well as devising agreements where the economic substance varies from the form of the transaction. The study aims to investigate some of the practical challenges faced by tax administrators in the application of the arm’s length principle. The study was conducted based on a literature review, as well as analysing specific examples reported in newspapers where multinational enterprises have used aggressive tax planning schemes to shift profits. International case law was also analysed to evaluate some of the factors considered by the courts in the determination of the arm’s length price. It was found that multinational enterprises definitely use aggressive tax planning schemes to shift profits. The practical challenges in the determination of arm’s length prices, complexity of the transactions involved, as well as a lack of resources, especially in the developing nations, are some of the factors that cause tax administrators to battle to find a solution to deter and detect these schemes. Other methods such as the unitary taxation method and the country by country reporting concept have been brought forward as alternatives to the arm’s length principle. These alternatives have been proposed in an effort to find a solution to the challenges posed by the arm’s length principle. Specific measures have also been recommended for developing nations’ tax administrators to resolve the issues that they currently experience in this context. / Thesis (MCom (South African and International Taxation))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

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