Tax Sovereignty, Tax Competition and the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Concept of Permanent Establishment

Abstract

Through a normative and critical analysis, this article aims to study the new concept of Permanent Establishment (PE) suggested in the BEPS Report on Action 7 (Preventing the artificial avoidance of PE status), which was built on proposals put forward in the G20/ OECD’s discussion drafts in the year of 2015. The new definition of PE is crucial in the international tax context, since it determines the right of a country to tax profits of non-residents as well as avoids situations of double taxation. Moreover, nowadays, the PE concept is both obsolete and not in line with the global and digital economy, which justifies our analysis.