Strategizing Multinational Tax Risks

As tax treaties become more important in the international tax landscape, for both developed and developing countries, it is important to review practical guidance provided to tax administrations to enforce such treaties.  This is a valuable primer for those involved in tax treaty interpretation and negotiation.  The recently released Manual is provided as a reference link.

The present publication, entitled United Nations Manual for the Negotiation of Bilateral Tax Treaties between Developed and Developing Countries (the Manual), aims at strengthening the technical expertise of developing countries’ tax officials as regards the negotiation of tax treaties.

It provides practical guidance to treaty negotiators in developing countries, in particular those who use the United Nations Model Double Taxation Convention between Developed and Developing Countries (the UN Model).

This Manual constitutes an introductory guide to tax treaty negotiations and, as such, provides general explanations on the way treaty negotiations are conducted and on the issues that are typically addressed during these negotiations. While it seeks to identify important issues that treaty negotiators should be aware of, it does not attempt to provide an exhaustive analysis of these issues. When preparing for treaty negotiations, the user of this Manual will therefore often need to go beyond the explanations provided in these pages and to further research the issues that are identified therein. keeping in mind that the detailed Commentaries on the provisions of the United Nations Model Double Taxation Convention between Developed and Developing Countries and of the OECD Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital constitute the most authoritative source of information on the interpretation of these provisions.

Click to access manual-bilateral-tax-treaties-update-2019.pdf