Tax treaty briefing for June 2015

The OECD has just issued a revised Action 6 discussion draft. A few days earlier, the US Treasury released draft amendments to its Model Treaty that reflected some of the OECD proposals. Following the UK and Israel, Australia has anticipated Actions 1 and 7 of BEPS by dealing with diverted profits in its own way through its GAAR rules. A Swiss Supreme Court decision has reversed that of a lower court in holding that total return swop arrangements deny beneficial ownership of hedged shares. Jurisdictions are allocating profits to PEs based on the post-2010 OECD AOA approach, even though the specific treaty is based on the pre-2010 Model Treaty wording. Recent treaty highlights include provisions relating to dependent agency and stock of goods PEs, equipment leasing and hybrids.