Analysis

The Post-COVID19 path to economic recovery in Latin America and the Caribbean will demand both Domestic Revenue Mobilization measures and the promotion of domestic and foreign investment. Amid all the controversy surrounding the concession of tax incentives, the COVID-19 pandemic taught us a lesson: nothing is a sole economic issue. Public policies should address other concerns such as employment, health, environment, and education. A well-designed package of governmental measures may be a balanced proposal that includes diverse public interests to achieve optimal delivery of public goods. This post will focus on the granting of tax incentives for the digital economy in  accordance with the GATT, the GATS, and the OECD’s recommendations on harmful tax competition.

Brazil has been a challenging environment for businesses, in great part, due to the complexity and inefficiency of its tax system. Despite some controversy about the necessity of a wide and structural tax reform, the topic has been treated as a priority by the President and Congressional leaders, but the bills that currently address the tax reform have struggled to make significant progress in the Brazilian Congress. Besides, uncertainties remain as the Federal Administration may present and endorse a proposal, which could include the creation of a Digital Services Tax (“DST”).

With regards to the granting of taxing rights, in line with the destination principle Chilean VAT generally levies services provided or utilized in Chile. The destination principle is designed to ensure that tax on cross-border supplies is ultimately levied only in the jurisdiction where the final consumption occurs, thereby maintaining neutrality within the VAT system as it applies to international trade.

The taxpayer is the user or consumer of the digital service. However, if an Argentine resident intermediary mediates in the payment, it must act as withholding agent. If more than one intermediary are involved, the one with the closest business relationship with the digital service provider must act as the withholding agent. If no Argentine payment intermediary is involved, then the recipient of the services must report and pay the VAT through an electronic bank transfer to the Argentine Tax Administration.

A request for the institution of arbitration proceedings against the United Republic of Tanzania (“Respondent”) was registered by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Secretary General on October 5, 2020. This request was made by Nachingwea U.K. Limited (UK), Ntaka Nickel Holdings Limited (UK) and Nachingwea Nickel Limited (Tanzania) (“Claimants”). The claimants invoked the 1994 Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) between United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, on the one hand, and Tanzania, on the other.

As long as national tax systems develop in response to unique social and administrative pressures, jurisdictions will continue to rely on tax systems that exhibit at least as many differences as similarities. Tax harmonization represents the traditional answer to that entropic pressure, reflecting a confidence that nations can avoid international tax conflicts by becoming more like one another. Unfortunately, in part because many of the jurisdictions that populate today's international tax landscape have little in common, it seems that harmonization is no longer equal to the task. This Part introduces the concept of deharmonization, an alternative to harmonization that may be more robust.

Over the past few decades, the term ‘resource curse’ has entered the policy domain and has been used to describe how countries in Africa, and the Global South more generally, which are endowed with natural wealth, are unable to develop and cannot avoid declining into violent conflict. In the collective imaginary, wars in different African countries, such as Angola, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, and Liberia have been associated with brutal conflict waged by rebels driven by the lust for 'blood diamonds.'

Development, particularly in developing countries, in the current context requires thinking about how multiple global crises are interlinked, their impact on development prospects, and the narrative framing needed to generate positive and progressive systemic policy change.

Exploring the contentious relationship between trade and labour, my recently published co-authored book looks at the impact of the EU’s ‘new generation’ Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) on workers. Drawing upon extensive original research, which includes over 200 interviews with key actors across the EU and its trading partners, the book considers the effectiveness of the trade-labour linkage in an era of global value chains (GVCs).

Global Value Chains (GVCs) are the main form of contemporary transnational capitalism. They are complex legal and financial structures that challenge traditional international-national and public-private dichotomies. They shape and define the speed of work and extraction, build bridges, raise walls, and transform lives and nature in each place where they touch base around the globe. Covid-19, a biological shock that has triggered a legal and economic reconsideration of global markets, has revealed the ecological backbone of value chains and highlighted the need to rethink the premises of competitiveness and cheapness around which they are imagined.