Senior Tax Officials Meet To Discuss BEPS Project
On November 3-4, 2015, more than 260 senior tax officials from 102 jurisdictions and international organizations met to discuss the tax treaty-related outcomes of the OECD’s base erosion and profit shifting project.
Participants at the 20th Annual Global Forum on Tax Treaties welcomed the tax treaty-related measures agreed upon in the BEPS project, which will help tax administrations to effectively address double non-taxation. At the same time, the discussions at the meeting confirmed that double taxation should be prevented and legal certainty should be improved. The BEPS minimum standard to make dispute resolution mechanisms more effective was discussed in this context.
Participants said BEPS concerns should be addressed with global solutions, and discussions were held on the design of an inclusive framework for the BEPS implementation phase.
Later, the inaugural meeting of the ad hoc Group for the development of a multilateral instrument was held on November 5-6, where participants decided on issues relating to the organization of the work on the multilateral instrument, as well as approaches for addressing key substantive issues such as the relationship between the multilateral instrument and existing bilateral treaties. The Group also established a sub-group of countries and jurisdictions interested in mandatory binding arbitration under the mutual agreement procedure framework.
