Framework Convention of the United Nations

Editor’s Note:

Bombay Chartered Accountants Society (BCAS) has obtained a special accreditation to participate in the “Ad Hoc Intergovernmental Committee on Tax” at the United Nations as an Academia. CA RadhakishanRawal is representing BCAS at this forum and has been actively participating in discussions. In this write-up, he shares his experiences and updates on discussions at the UN on various tax issues.

OECD’S DOMINANCE AND RELATED ISSUES

For more than two decades, with first the project of attribution of profits to the permanent establishment and then with the BEPS project, the OECD has played a key lead role and dominated international tax agenda. However, not all countries or even the majority of the countries, seem to be happy with the outcome of these projects. OECD is perceived to be a club of rich developed countries, which largely favours residence country taxation as against giving taxing rights to the source country. This approach is generally visible in the output of the OECD’s work, and as a result, the developing countries feel aggrieved. The general perception is that the solutions developed by OECD protect the interests of only the developed countries and offer unfair treatment to the developing countries.