Why Can't the Germans...? English as Lingua Franca for Tax Treaties

Abstract

This article is a reply to Martin Wichmann’s reply from a German perspective to John F. Avery Jones’s article ‘Why Can’t the English … ?’, both published in the Bulletin for International Taxation of the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation (IBFD), 2019 (Volume 73), No. 6/7. It argues that Wichmann’s concerns against Avery Jones’s suggestion for English-speaking countries to follow the lead of non-English speaking countries in concluding tax treaties with an English prevailing text or only in English are unfounded, and that also the few remaining non- English speaking countries with a tendency not to conclude treaties with English prevailing texts should embrace the emerging global reality of English as lingua franca for tax treaties. The article is based on an analysis of 3,358 tax treaties currently in force or yet to come into force.