Taxation of International Partnerships

The book deals with the taxation of international partnerships and the 18 examples of the OECD Partnership Report under the laws of 14 countries.

Why this book?

The taxation of partnerships in an international context is undoubtedly one of the most complex areas of (international) tax law. It is also of great importance from a practical point of view. This is particularly due to two conflicting principles: some countries treat partnerships as taxable entities, while others treat them as opaque or transparent and only see the partners as taxpayers for tax purposes. This difference in approach can lead to double taxation as well as double non-taxation. In addition, specific problems can arise in the case of triangular situations.

The tax treatment of partnerships is so difficult and so important from a practical as well as an academic/theoretical point of view that the OECD, back in 1999, published an extensive report on this subject, the so-called “OECD Partnership Report”. This document set forth in great detail the view of the OECD with respect to the taxation of international partnerships from the perspective of the state of source as well as the state of residence. The Report contained some general remarks on the taxation of partnerships, but was mainly built on examples of specific cases and their tax treatment.

In 2014, the OECD Partnership Report celebrates its 15th anniversary. Consequently, it is high time to investigate if and how the ideas of the OECD have been adopted by various jurisdictions. This book aims first to give a short introduction on the taxation of international partnerships in individual jurisdictions, and then to answer the problems posed in the examples in the Partnership Report from each jurisdiction´s perspective. To get the full picture, the jurisdictions covered include the economically most important EU Member States and other European countries like Switzerland, next to Australia, Brazil, China and the United States.