Thursday, May 26, 2016

What does it mean to implement BEPS?

Today I took part in a panel discussing the topic of "Life After BEPS," at which I laid out the three categories of BEPS commitments in three slides. These categories are "minimum standards" (there are four), "recommendations" (there are several) and "best practices" (there are many). These are defined terms in BEPS world but it is already fascinating that there is some category blurring going on in the discourse surrounding implementation. I'm interested in that blurring because of course we are in the midst of a major cycle of law- and norm-making in international tax, and "what countries actually agreed upon" is really going to matter pretty soon, as the difference between convergence and divergence depends on a meeting of the minds at the level of rulemaking. This will play out through conflict and resolution at the domestic and international level in the form of both hard law (multilateral and bilateral agreements and domestic law changes) and soft law (OECD models, guidelines, and peer monitoring). In case they are of interest, I thought I would post my three slides here.




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