Schedule

Monday (18th July)

• 2:30-3:00 pm: Opening

• 3:00-4:30 pm: Opening Lecture

• 5:00-6:30 pm: Introduction to Tax Treaty Law, Scope of Tax Treaties (Lecturers: Yasmin Lawson and Siddhesh Rao)

  • Structure of double tax treaties: definitions, distributive rules, and methods for elimination of double taxation

  • Interaction of domestic law and treaty law

  • OECD and UN Model Convention

  • Taxes covered, persons covered, deemed residence, center of vital interests, place of effective management

• 7:30-9:00 pm: Interpretation of Tax Treaties (Lecturer: Siddhesh Rao)

  • Concept of interpretation, interpretation of international treaties, interpretation of tax treaties

  • Role of OECD/UN Model Convention and their Commentaries

  • DTTs in relation to domestic law

Tuesday (19th July)

• 3:00-4:30 pm: Abuse of Tax Treaties – Where Are the Limits? (Lecturers: Philipp Scharizer, Stefano Castagna)

  • Abuse in treaty law, treaty shopping, anti-abuse rules in tax treaties and under domestic law

  • Limitation-on-benefits clause, and principal-purpose test (BEPS Action 6)

• 5:00-6:30 pm: Abuse in International Tax Law – BEPS (Lecturers: Philipp Scharizer, Stefano Castagna)

  • Aggressive tax planning structures through examples

  • Overview and status of the OECD BEPS project

• 7:30-9:00 pm: Session delivered by Xiamen University

Wednesday (20th July)

• 3:00-4:30 pm: Business Profits and Permanent Establishments – Basic Principles (Lecturers: Philipp Scharizer, Stefano Castagna)

  • Distributive rules relevant for companies: Arts. 7, 8 and former Art. 14 OECD Model Convention

  • Definition of PE (Art. 5 OECD Model Convention/UN Model): physical PE, construction PE, agency PE, and service PE

  • Allocation of profits between head office and PE (Art. 7 para. 2 OECD Model Convention)

  • Dealings between head office and PE, AOA (Authorized OECD Approach)

• 5:00-6:30 pm: Business Profits and Permanent Establishments – Recent Developments (Lecturers: Philipp Scharizer, Stefano Castagna)

  • Preventing the artificial avoidance of PE status (BEPS Action 7)

  • Commissionaire arrangements, and exceptions in Art. 5(4)

  • Developments in the UN Model

  • Two-Pillar Solutions

• 7:30-9:00 pm: Transfer Pricing 1 (Lecturer: Siddhesh Rao)

  • Associated companies (Art. 9 OECD Model Convention)

  • OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines

  • Transfer pricing methods through examples

  • Adjustments to intercompany pricing, secondary adjustments, documentation requirements

Thursday (21st July)

• 3:00-4:30 pm: Transfer Pricing 2 (Lecturer: Siddhesh Rao)

  • Case study of transfer pricing issues

• 5:00-6:30 pm: Passive Income (Lecturer: Marcelo Barbosa Moura)

  • Definition of “dividends”, “interest” and “royalties”

  • Allocation of taxing rights, withholding taxes, beneficial ownership

  • PE proviso and relation to Art 7

• 7:30-9:00 pm: Immovable Property and Capital Gains (Lecturer: Siddhesh Rao)

  • Art 6: Definition of “immovable property”, allocation of taxing rights, relation to other allocation rules

  • Art 13: Definition of “alienation”, alienation of immovable property, movable property, shares and other property

  • Relation to other allocation rules, recent case law

Friday (22nd July)

• 3:00-4:30 pm: Taxation of Employment Income (Lecturer: Sergio Messina)

  • Distributive rule for income from dependent work, term of “salaries, wages and other similar remuneration”

  • Term of “employer”, frontier workers, 183-days-rule

  • Distributive rule for pensions, public service pensions, distributive rule for artists and sportsmen

• 5:00-6:30 pm: Methods to Avoid Double Taxation (Lecturer: Theres Neumüller)

  • Exemption method, exemption with progression, credit method

  • Ordinary credit, tax sparing credit

• 7:30-9:00 pm: Qualification and Allocation Conflicts (Lecturer: Stefano Castagna)

  • Qualification and allocation conflicts

  • Partnership Report, proposed rule in Art. 1(2) (BEPS Action 2)

Saturday (23rd July)

• 3:00-4:30 pm: Non-Discrimination and Exchange of Information (Lecturers: Stefano Castagna, Philipp Scharizer)

  • Non-discrimination clauses in tax treaties (Art. 24 OECD Model Convention)

  • Case law on the non-discrimination clause

  • Art 26 OECD Model Convention: exchange of information on request, spontaneous exchange of information, automatic exchange of information

  • Model Agreement on Exchange of Information on Tax Matters (TIEA), Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters

  • Agreement on the Global Standard of Automatic Information Exchange, EU developments

• 5:00-6:30 pm: Tax Treaties in Practice

• 7:00-8:30 pm: Dispute Resolution (Lecturer: Philipp Scharizer)

  • Mutual agreement procedure (MAP), arbitration

• 8:30-8:45 pm: Essay Preparation and Q&A