Developing countries and tax treaties: learning from mistakes

From Martin Hearson, whom we quoted recently on a related topic:

“One big theme from the interviews I conducted on my recent African trip is that tax officials in developing countries are really starting to raise concerns about some of their tax treaties. This is particularly true of treaties with the Nerherlands, Mauritius and other countries that can leave them vulnerable to treaty shopping, although it doesn’t stop there.

Why are you thinking about this now? I asked. One finance ministry official told me that there had been three factors: first, seeing countries such as Mongolia and Argentina cancel some of their treaties; second, recent NGO reports that had focused on the abuse of tax treaties, in particular the ActionAid report on Zambia sugar; third, the growing body of practical experience inside the country’s revenue authority.”

Now read on. Consistently an interesting blogger. See our tax treaties web page here. See Lee Sheppard’s fiery presentation warning against OECD model tax treaties here.