The Global Tax Conference Project, a collaborative effort among NYU School of Law and three other academic institutions, kicked off on June 1 with a multinational conference at the University of Amsterdam. Attendees examined a European Commission proposal stemming from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project. BEPS, intended to prevent corporations from avoiding taxation, is considered one of the most significant developments in the tax world in the past decade.
The first in a series of conferences, “Anti-BEPS Implementation in the EU” looked at the European Commission’s recent Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive, which will institute measures in the European Union related to BEPS. The OECD’s BEPS endeavor targets corporations exploiting gaps and mismatches in international tax rules in order to shift profits artificially to low- or no-tax locations with minimal economic activity, resulting in the avoidance of most or all corporate taxes.
Among the academics, practitioners, and government officials from around the world who participated in the Amsterdam conference were Professor of Tax Practice Joshua Blank LLM ’07 and Daniel Shaviro, Wayne Perry Professor of Taxation. In a panel on international reactions to the EU’s actions, Blank discussed disclosure of information to the public and the taxing authority in BEPS action reports, while Shaviro focused on the US response to BEPS and EU state aid cases.
In addition to NYU Law, the Amsterdam Centre for Tax Law at University of Amsterdam, the University of São Paulo, and the China International Tax Center of the Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing are also partners in the Global Tax Conference Project. In October, NYU Law will host the second international conference in the series. Subsequent conferences will take place in São Paulo and Beijing in 2017.
Posted June 15, 2016