Beneficial ownership of income as an antiabusive measure in Serbian Tax Law

Abstract

The Serbian Corporate Income Tax Act contains a provision on the beneficial ownership of income (hereinafter: the BO provision), which is one of the conditions for the application of the preferential tax rate on income tax after tax deduction, which is envisaged in Treaties for the avoidance of Double Taxation on income and capital (hereinafter: Double Taxation Treaties/ DTTs). The subject matter of research in this paper is the term "beneficial ownership", which is not defined in the Corportate Income Tax Act. It may ultimately lead to abusing the preferential tax rates from the DTTs in tax planning and "treaty shopping" through the use of conduit companies. Tax experts have different opinions on the legal nature of the BO provision, which is given the function of an anti-abusive measure (on the one hand) and a rule for the attribution of income (on the other hand). The author analyzes the current function of the BO provision envisaged in the Serbian Serbian Corporate Income Tax Act (CITA), and its inadequate application. The author advocates for enacting the BO provision as an anti-abusive measure, and examines the possible application of the BO provision in domestic tax law, with reference to Articles 10, 11, and 12 of the DTTs that Serbia contracted with other states, as well as Articles 10-12 of the OECD Model-Convention on Income and Capital (2017) and Commentaries on these articles. Such an application of the BO provision may preclude "treaty shopping". In final remarks, the author points out why the BO provision should be envisaged as an anti-abusive measure in Serbian tax law.

Keywords

• the concept of beneficial ownership
• conduit companies
• double taxation treaties (dtt)
• "treaty shopping"
• tax planning