Naeem Noorbakhsh; Hassan Vakilian; Javid Laknahur
Abstract
Over the past years, "arbitration" as a means of settling international disputes has gained popularity, but compared to international tax disputes, the possibility of applying the arbitration clause is disputed. After the successful use of arbitration to resolve tax disputes in EU arbitration convention, ...
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Over the past years, "arbitration" as a means of settling international disputes has gained popularity, but compared to international tax disputes, the possibility of applying the arbitration clause is disputed. After the successful use of arbitration to resolve tax disputes in EU arbitration convention, The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2008 and the United Nations (UN) in 2011 were convinced to insert an arbitration clause in their model treaties. Skepticism to Arbitrability of international tax disputes due to its link to the sovereignty rights of states, resulted in utilizing such clauses by few countries in their tax treaties. Shortcomings in current methods of dealing with disputes between Contracting states (bilateral agreement procedure) on avoidance of double taxation agreements and lack of a binding mechanism for resolving disputes through direct negotiations between the two countries, has justified the need for an arbitration clause in these treaties. Regarding the nature of possible disputes arising from double taxation treaties, seems there’s no obstacle to use arbitration clause in Iran’s bilateral tax treaties and in order to draft a proper clause, it is recommended to use one of the model clauses of UN or OECD.
