The Multilateral Legal Instrument: A developing country perspective

Suranjali Tandon

Working Papers from National Institute of Public Finance and Policy

Abstract: Action point 15 of the BEPS program mandated developing a Multilateral Legal In-strument (MLI) to modify bilateral tax treaties. A country signing this instrument will be able to modify all treaties, where other contracting parties have also notified the same. This would allow countries to simultaneously and therefore swiftly adopt measures to tackle BEPS in a large number of treaties. Based on the country positions submitted to the OECD as on 30th August 2017, this paper makes an attempt to assess whether this instru-ment has succeeded in bringing about the desired changes. A unique database is con-structed on the basis of these country positions. Using this database, the paper shows that the benefit of the MLI may be limited in so far as the application of the optional articles is concerned. In so far as developing countries are concerned, it is found that the gains to these countries may be limited. The adoption of the minimum standards may be the lim-ited success achieved by the instrument.

Keywords: BEPS; tax treaties; Multilateral Legal Instrument; Foreign investment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H25 H26 K34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24
Date: 2018-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law
Note: Working Paper 220, 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:npf:wpaper:18/220

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