Browsing by Author "Abdoune, Samir"

The role of international taxation in the global economy is becoming increasingly important with globalization and the ease of controlling and moving assets. OECD’s Transfer Pricing Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and Tax Administrations and its ongoing implementation to member states’ national legislation attempts to provide a solution. As taxation has historically belonged to the sovereign state, international organizations struggle to unify national tax legislation on an international level via traditional methods. The thesis examines the influence of OECDs Transfer Pricing Guidelines to national legislation, more specifically the hardening of soft law through national case law, travaux preparatoires and finally legislation. The main question of the thesis, is whether OECDs Transfer Pricing Guidelines are considered as binding law, or non-binding soft law. The paper concludes, that even though OECDs Transfer Pricing Guidelines is not directly considered binding law, it is a predominant tool of interpretation in matters of transfer pricing. This being, soft law, especially in a complicated area such as taxation, seems to be the most effective way to implement international by hardening non-binding guidelines such as the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines into national legislation. Soft law seems to have proven itself to be a less bureaucratic and more flexible option than the traditional methods. The underlying issues are that soft law methods of influencing legislation does not undergo the usual legislative procedure and thus does not necessarily comply with democratic procedures of promulgation of law. Moreover, for international soft law to succeed nationally in the area of taxation, it is important not only to have political momentum from the OECD member states and non-member states, but also to have cooperation and compliance of multinational enterprises. The OECD is seen as an important international actor in matters concerning economical and especially taxation. Moreover, the considerable base tax erosion nations are facing and seeking solutions to, adds considerable weight and political momentum to the actions of the OECD.