If interpreted in a strict legal sense, beneficial ownership rules in tax treaties would have no effect on conduit companies because companies at law own their property and income beneficially. Conversely, a company can never own anything in a substantive sense because economically a company is...

The article deals with the interesting issue of the tax treaty qualification problems arising in hybrid financial instruments and structures. The need to fit the great diversity of instruments and legal, economic and accounting trends attached to them into the closed range of treaty income...