Babeș-Bolyai University wins 2024 GTTC Universities Project Competition

The final round of the 8th GTTC Universities Competition was held at the IBFD headquarters on Tuesday 4 June 2024, following the Postdoctoral International Tax Forum, the Doctoral Meeting for Researchers in International Tax Law (DocMIT) and the Visiting Global Scholar Distinguished Lecture delivered by Prof. Stephen Shay.

Three university teams had been selected to compete in the finals:

• Xiamen University 
• O.P. Jindal Global University
• Babeș-Bolyai University

The GTTC Universities Competition is held annually. It has a twofold purpose: to give students the opportunity to deepen their understanding of tax treaties by carrying out research into the treaty negotiation policy of their own country; and to provide material that enriches the discussion in the GTTC chapters on specific treaty articles. Competing teams write an extensive report on the treaty policy of their country in respect of one aspect of the treaty network; this year the reports focussed on the passive income articles. 

The three finalist teams, selected from the ten universities that entered the competition, had all written excellent reports, not only setting out the content of concluded treaties, but also placing that information in the context of the country’s economic position and national tax policy. In the final round they presented their findings to the jury, consisting of Jennifer Roeleveld (University of Cape Town), Luis Nouel (IBFD) and Joanna Wheeler (IBFD). 

In their presentation, the team from the Babeș-Bolyai University shed light on the development of Romania’s treaty policy and covered additional research they had conducted in response to comments provided by the jury on their written report. Combined with the quality of their written report, this secured them first place in the competition.