The general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR) in section 245 of the Income Tax Act is about drawing a line between legitimate tax minimization and abusive tax avoidance. However, the GAAR does not provide guidelines for determining whether a particular transaction is legitimate or abusive. In this...

This article asks whether tax planning advice can ever be effectively regulated by the IRS. The article first explores whether tax advice differs in kind from other forms of legal advice. Secondly, it looks at the clear regulatory distinction between the treatment of return preparation advice...

Tax avoidance by major multinational enterprises (MNEs) has been extremely topical after the great financial crisis of 2008. As a result, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2013 commenced a project known as the “base erosion and profit shifting” (BEPS)...

We propose a novel approach for studying optimal capital structure under the prevalent corporate income tax regime where full tax deductibility of interest is permitted. Then, following the OECD proposed BEPS (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) framework, we impose an EBITDA-based limit on the...

Intangible assets constitute a major value-driver for multi-national enterprises (MNEs). This is even more so for companies that rely on valuable intangibles rather than physical assets to generate financial returns. Intangibles such as patents, design, trademarks (or brands) and copyrights are...