Pub Date : 2021-06-15DOI: 10.1515/9781501756009-005
While the tax treaties that are the focus of this book range from those signed in the 2010s to some that are fifty years old, the models on which they are all based date from earlier still. It was in the 1920s and 1930s that the basic design of the international tax regime was laid out, combining the decentralized, bottom-up approach of hardlaw bilateral treaties with topdown softlaw standardization through multilateral models.1 Key concepts that now constrain countries’ ability to tax multinational companies were also developed at this time, fi nally set in stone with the creation of the OECD model treaty in 1963. Throughout this century of negotiations, the tension between capitalimporting lowerincome countries and capitalexporting higherincome countries has been a consistent theme. Yet the center of gravity of the regime we have today, even taking into account the UN model treaty’s greater emphasis on lowerincome countries’ taxing rights, is much closer to the position articulated by higherincome countries than by lowerincome countries. This chapter reviews the historical rec ord, combining original archival research with existing accounts to give a po liti cal economy perspective on a story that is familiar to tax history scholars. It demonstrates that higherincome countries’ domination of the international tax regime results from their stronger preference for cooperation among themselves, which drove repeated and insurmountable firstmover advantages. Today’s international tax institutions were not primarily designed for lowerincome countries but by and for higherincome ones. They resemble those countries’ own tax systems and a consensus that formed among a transnational community of experts from the Global North. 2 A HISTORY OF LOWERINCOME COUNTRIES IN (AND OUT OF) GLOBAL TAX GOVERNANCE
{"title":"2. A History of Lower-Income Countries in (and out of) Global Tax Governance","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/9781501756009-005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501756009-005","url":null,"abstract":"While the tax treaties that are the focus of this book range from those signed in the 2010s to some that are fifty years old, the models on which they are all based date from earlier still. It was in the 1920s and 1930s that the basic design of the international tax regime was laid out, combining the decentralized, bottom-up approach of hardlaw bilateral treaties with topdown softlaw standardization through multilateral models.1 Key concepts that now constrain countries’ ability to tax multinational companies were also developed at this time, fi nally set in stone with the creation of the OECD model treaty in 1963. Throughout this century of negotiations, the tension between capitalimporting lowerincome countries and capitalexporting higherincome countries has been a consistent theme. Yet the center of gravity of the regime we have today, even taking into account the UN model treaty’s greater emphasis on lowerincome countries’ taxing rights, is much closer to the position articulated by higherincome countries than by lowerincome countries. This chapter reviews the historical rec ord, combining original archival research with existing accounts to give a po liti cal economy perspective on a story that is familiar to tax history scholars. It demonstrates that higherincome countries’ domination of the international tax regime results from their stronger preference for cooperation among themselves, which drove repeated and insurmountable firstmover advantages. Today’s international tax institutions were not primarily designed for lowerincome countries but by and for higherincome ones. They resemble those countries’ own tax systems and a consensus that formed among a transnational community of experts from the Global North. 2 A HISTORY OF LOWERINCOME COUNTRIES IN (AND OUT OF) GLOBAL TAX GOVERNANCE","PeriodicalId":266567,"journal":{"name":"Imposing Standards","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128693440","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-15DOI: 10.1515/9781501756009-011
{"title":"8. Historical Legacies in a Rapidly Changing World","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/9781501756009-011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501756009-011","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":266567,"journal":{"name":"Imposing Standards","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122282990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-15DOI: 10.1515/9781501756009-006
{"title":"3. The Competition Discourse and North-South Relations","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/9781501756009-006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501756009-006","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":266567,"journal":{"name":"Imposing Standards","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121274102","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-15DOI: 10.1515/9781501756009-012
{"title":"Appendix: List of Interviews and Meetings Observed","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/9781501756009-012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501756009-012","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":266567,"journal":{"name":"Imposing Standards","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127065614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-15DOI: 10.1515/9781501756009-007
Since the origins of the international model treaties at the League of Nations, and the negotiation of some of the earliest bilateral agreements, tax treaties have primarily been the proj ect of a community of international tax prac ti tion ers. Many have a common educational and professional background, they meet each other regularly, share in the per for mance of negotiations among states or between states and businesses, and have a vested interest in protecting the internal coherence of what they see as a technical proj ect against po liti cal interference.1 There is little pretense during the formal po liti cal scrutiny of tax treaties that they are understood by ministers and other politicians in any kind of detail. This chapter therefore turns the attention away from mechanisms that act on such policymakers and toward the experts who develop the multilateral models and negotiate the bilateral treaties themselves. Whereas the tax treaties myth leads nonspecialists to seek treaties as a way of stimulating investment by lowering investors’ tax costs, those with detailed technical knowledge take a dif fer ent view. For them, tax treaties transmit a series of procedural and content rules concerning the taxation of investors, from the authors of model treaties— a community of specialists revolving around the OECD— to the signatory countries. They translate transnational softlaw standards into hard, enforceable law. To be sure, these negotiators have strong incentives deriving from the national sphere, which can produce intense disagreements in bilateral and multilateral negotiations. But they share the longterm proj ect of creating a consistent global approach to taxation modeled on OECD standards, to enhance trade and investment flows, a public good to be diffused as widely as 4 THE INTERNATIONAL TAX COMMUNITY AND THE POLITICS OF EXPERTISE
{"title":"4. The International Tax Community and the Politics of Expertise","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/9781501756009-007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501756009-007","url":null,"abstract":"Since the origins of the international model treaties at the League of Nations, and the negotiation of some of the earliest bilateral agreements, tax treaties have primarily been the proj ect of a community of international tax prac ti tion ers. Many have a common educational and professional background, they meet each other regularly, share in the per for mance of negotiations among states or between states and businesses, and have a vested interest in protecting the internal coherence of what they see as a technical proj ect against po liti cal interference.1 There is little pretense during the formal po liti cal scrutiny of tax treaties that they are understood by ministers and other politicians in any kind of detail. This chapter therefore turns the attention away from mechanisms that act on such policymakers and toward the experts who develop the multilateral models and negotiate the bilateral treaties themselves. Whereas the tax treaties myth leads nonspecialists to seek treaties as a way of stimulating investment by lowering investors’ tax costs, those with detailed technical knowledge take a dif fer ent view. For them, tax treaties transmit a series of procedural and content rules concerning the taxation of investors, from the authors of model treaties— a community of specialists revolving around the OECD— to the signatory countries. They translate transnational softlaw standards into hard, enforceable law. To be sure, these negotiators have strong incentives deriving from the national sphere, which can produce intense disagreements in bilateral and multilateral negotiations. But they share the longterm proj ect of creating a consistent global approach to taxation modeled on OECD standards, to enhance trade and investment flows, a public good to be diffused as widely as 4 THE INTERNATIONAL TAX COMMUNITY AND THE POLITICS OF EXPERTISE","PeriodicalId":266567,"journal":{"name":"Imposing Standards","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116140192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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