TY - JOUR
T1 - From National Cooperative Compliance to Project-related Multilateral Cooperative Compliance
AU - Christodoulopoulos, Timo
AU - Owens, Jeffrey
AU - Leigh-Pemberton, Jonathan
AU - Dallhammer, Daniel
AU - Stern, Richard
PY - 2025/1/9
Y1 - 2025/1/9
N2 - This article explores risk assessment and assurance programmes, both at the domestic level and at the cross-border level and seeks to consolidate existing literature in this area. Acknowledging that traditional dispute prevention and resolution mechanisms alone cannot provide the tax certainty needed by businesses in an efficient manner, the authors highlight the key role that programmes such as Cooperative Compliance (CC), the International Compliance Assurance Programme (ICAP) of the OECD, the European Trust and Cooperation Approach (ETACA) of the EU Commission and the Finnish Cross-border Dialogue (FCBD) can play for this purpose. This article illustrates the main characteristics of a plethora of national CC programmes around the world as well as of cross-border risk assessment and assurance programmes (ICAP, ETACA and FCBD), it examines their positive aspects and benefits, the challenges that they present and elaborates on relevant legal considerations. Last, the authors identify the limits of existing domestic and cross-border risk assessment and assurance programmes and propose a potential next step forward: multilateral CC programmes that will provide tax certainty in respect of all tax aspects of large cross-border projects (project-related multilateral CC or, simply, PMCC programmes).
AB - This article explores risk assessment and assurance programmes, both at the domestic level and at the cross-border level and seeks to consolidate existing literature in this area. Acknowledging that traditional dispute prevention and resolution mechanisms alone cannot provide the tax certainty needed by businesses in an efficient manner, the authors highlight the key role that programmes such as Cooperative Compliance (CC), the International Compliance Assurance Programme (ICAP) of the OECD, the European Trust and Cooperation Approach (ETACA) of the EU Commission and the Finnish Cross-border Dialogue (FCBD) can play for this purpose. This article illustrates the main characteristics of a plethora of national CC programmes around the world as well as of cross-border risk assessment and assurance programmes (ICAP, ETACA and FCBD), it examines their positive aspects and benefits, the challenges that they present and elaborates on relevant legal considerations. Last, the authors identify the limits of existing domestic and cross-border risk assessment and assurance programmes and propose a potential next step forward: multilateral CC programmes that will provide tax certainty in respect of all tax aspects of large cross-border projects (project-related multilateral CC or, simply, PMCC programmes).
KW - Tax Certainty
KW - Cooperative Compliance
KW - Tax Control Framework
KW - Corporate Income Tax
KW - Value Added Tax
KW - Cross-border Tax Disputes
KW - Dispute Prevention
KW - Dispute Resolution
KW - ICAP
KW - ETACA
KW - Multilateral Cooperative Compliance
KW - Double Tax Treaties
KW - Exchange of Information
KW - Mutual Agreement Procedure
KW - MAP
KW - Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters
KW - European Union
KW - OECD
KW - Advance Pricing Arrangements
KW - Tax Rulings
KW - International Compliance Assurance Programme
KW - European Trust and Cooperation Approach
M3 - Journal article
SN - 1878-4917
JO - World Tax Journal
JF - World Tax Journal
ER -