The President signed § 7701(o) of the Internal Revenue Code, the first U.S. statutory general anti-avoidance rule, or “GAAR,” into effect on 30 March 2010. The birth of the American GAAR was buried in § 1409 (a) of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (H.R. 4872). With...

This paper comprises a transcript of the oral addresses and discussion at a colloquium that compared the general anti-avoidance rule of income tax law with the civil law doctrine of Rechtsmissbrauch (abuse of law) and similar doctrines in eight jurisdictions: Germany, Croatia, New Zealand,...

In this third in a series of four articles, the authors examine the German Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) regime. Previous articles dealt with REITs in the United States and the United Kingdom. A subsequent and final article concludes with a comparison of the three regimes. This article...

In this first of a series of four articles, the authors consider real estate investment trust (REIT) regimes in general, and, then, focus on US REITs. In subsequent articles the authors deal with UK and German REITs, before concluding with a comparison of the three regimes. The United States was...

From a tax policy point of view, one of the demerits of a foreign investment fund regime is that it causes the law to treat forms of investment that are similar in economic purpose and effect as if they were different. In particular, it I likely to distinguish between direct investments by...

This is a chapter of a book on foreign investment fund regimes. Most features of foreign investment fund regimes fit reasonably neatly into the analytical framework of definition, boundaries, scope, exceptions, and calculation of income, topics that are dealt with in other chapters of the book....

The expression “foreign” or “overseas investment fund regime” can be misleading. The direct targets of such a regime are local residents of the country that enacts the regime. Overseas investment fund regimes aim only indirectly at investment funds in other countries. The objective of a...

Sections HH 1 and HH 8 of the New Zealand Income Tax Act 1976 contain a special regime for the taxation of trusts. Income that is distributed by the trustee is taxed in the hands of the beneficiary, and income that is accumulated is taxed to the trustee. The mere fact of the trustee being...

Much of the world's tax treaty policy is driven by approaches that suit, or that have suited, the USA. Changes to the relevant economic positions of the USA and the rest of the world have seen an altering of the way in which treaties are negotiated. At the time of writing the effect of these...

Major tax reforms in the 1980s saw movement towards to tax systems that are relatively pure, in that they are not given additional tasks promoting economic or social policies. The USA under the Clinton Administration began to show signs of reversing some of the changes of the 1980s. Tax policy...