I am very pleased to be hosting internationally renowned tax expert Brian Arnold at McGill Law next Monday, where he will deliver a talk on the OECD's ongoing initiative with respect to Base Erosion and Profit Shipping ("BEPS"). The talk is scheduled to commence at 12 pm; members of the public are warmly welcomed.
Location: McGill Faculty of Law, 3644 Peel Street, New Chancellor Day Hall, Room 202.
Date and Time: Monday, 10 February, 12:00–13:30.
One of the things I am curious whether or not will be discussed is the political dimension of BEPS. There does not seem to much discussion that to make BEPS a global "standard" will require the approval of the US Congress and in particular the US Republican Party. Now I don't want to rule out completely the possibility that something will be emerge out of the BEPS that could gain the support of GOP tax writers. However, I think there is a very real possibility that much of the US Republican Party might judge BEPS to just be a bunch of euro socialist nonsense and quickly chuck it in the bin.
ReplyDeleteAt this point there are one of the two possibilities BEPS is either falls apart completely or we have a two tier system in which the US and the US Republican Party is able to keep the US' existing tax treaties and existing standards on permanent establishment and transfer pricing while smaller less powerful countries like the Netherlands and Ireland will be forced to comply with BEPS by the OECD and G20.
The fundamental problem is non US Conservative leaders like Stephen Harper, Jim Flaherty, David Cameron, George Osborne, and Tony Abbott lack the balls to attack the John Boehner's, Paul Ryan's, and Rand Paul's on issues such as FATCA reciprocity, BEPS, and US multinational tax dodging. What is amazing is small Republicans are even attacking Stephen Harper saying Harper is not a "real" Conservative unlike John Boehner and Reince Preibus because Harper signed a FATCA IGA and is the GOP put didn't stand up to Obama's socialism.. Soloman Yue who heads Republicans Overseas and is an RNC member was making this argument on the Republicans Overseas facebook page.