Aggressive international tax planning by multinational corporations

It is intended to situate the OECD’s BEPS project in the context of the Canadian tax system and to provide some background information about the treatment of aggressive international tax planning under the existing Canadian tax rules so that readers can better understand and appreciate the potential effects of the BEPS project from a Canadian perspective. [...] The tight timing of the BEPS project emphasizes the importance of the work to the OECD and the G20. [...] Furthermore, the proposed anti-treaty-shopping rule in the budget is inconsistent with the anti-treaty-shopping rules proposed in the OECD’s BEPS Action 6. 6 AN OVERVIEW OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CANADIAN TAX SYSTEM Introduction This part of the paper provides a broad overview of the structure of the international tax rules of the Canadian federal income tax system applicable to multinat [...] The CRA describes tax evasion as follows: Tax evasion is the commission or omission of an act knowingly with the intent to deceive so that the tax reported by the taxpayer is less than the tax payable under the law, or a conspiracy to commit such an offence. [...] The potential application of paragraph (7) of the LOB article to deny the treaty benefits of Article XI is less clear, particularly in the case of the back-to-back loan alternative in circumstances where USco is entitled to treaty benefits only as a result of a determination by the competent authority under paragraph (6) of the LOB article.