RESTRAINING HARMFUL TAX COMPETITION: AN ANALYSIS OF AMERICAN CFC LEGISLATION
Capital and labor mobility facilitates cross-border activities of enterprises. In the era of globalization the optimal choice of investment location gives enterprises an opportunity to profit maximization. As a result the governments competing for foreign direct investment offer to enterprises preferential tax treatment. In order to minimize the loss of tax revenue countries imposing high effective tax rates on enterprises implement diversified anti-tax-avoidance measures. One of these measures is controlled foreign corporation. The article examines the application of the controlled foreign corporation rules in the United States of America to combat harmful tax competition. It has to be underlined, that the American controlled foreign corporation legislation was a prototype for other countries that use this institution to prevent tax avoidance. The aim of this article is to review the controlled foreign corporation legislation in the USA, analyze the structure of CFCs and the structure of their subpart F income in this country and evaluate the efficiency of this anti-tax-avoidance measure. The author describes inter alia, implications of harmful tax competition and the CFC rules. As the provisions of controlled foreign corporation are also planned to be introduced in Poland, the American legislation might be a good example of its successful implementation.
An Analysis of Where American Companies Report Profits: Indications of Profit Shifting
This report uses data on the operations of U.S. multinational companies (MNCs) to examine the extent to which, if any, MNCs are moving profits out of high-tax countries (or out of the U.S.) and into low-tax countries with little corresponding change in business operations, a practice known as "profit shifting."
Tax Treaties: The Secret Agent's Secrets
Recently two apparent paradoxes have been revealed about an agency permanent establishment (PE) under tax treaties, first that it is possible to avoid an agency PE by exploiting a difference between civil law and common law on agency (often referred to as commissionnaire structures) and secondly that if the agent is rewarded with a market-value fee there will be no profits to attribute to an agency PE. This article demonstrates that these problems have been present since the origin of tax treaties, and that they stem from a form-over-substance approach to PE tests which relegates the independence test in defining PEs to a secondary role, from the use of a different indeterminate independence test in transfer-pricing rules and from the definition of the firm in terms of common ownership. Underlying the problems have been inconsistent views on how value is generated within a firm. The solution is to settle on a workable theory of value, to apply substance over form, and to realise the significance of independence in defining the boundary of the firm. Under current treaty law, the second asserted paradox is not correct if treaties are interpreted in a sensible manner.