Russia To Sign OECD's BEPS Convention

by Tatiana Smolenskaya, Tax-News.com, Moscow

30 May 2017

Russia will sign the OECD's Multilateral Convention to implement tax treaty-related measures to prevent base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS), the Government announced on May 20.

The Convention, developed by the OECD under Action 15 of the BEPS project, will transpose BEPS recommendations into over 2,000 tax treaties worldwide. According to the OECD, the Convention will implement minimum standards to counter treaty abuse and to improve dispute resolution mechanisms, while providing flexibility to accommodate countries' specific tax treaty policies.

Russia was part of the Ad Hoc Group of more than 100 countries and jurisdictions from G-20, OECD, BEPS associates, and other interested countries, who worked on an equal footing to finalize the text of the Convention.

Over 100 countries are expected to participate in the signing ceremony for the Convention, which is to take place on June 7, 2017.

According to the Government, the Convention will apply to 63 tax treaties concluded by the Russian Federation with foreign countries, but will not apply to treaties signed with countries that are not members of the OECD's Ad Hoc Group, and to treaties signed with Sweden and Japan as talks are underway to sign new treaties with these countries based on the provisions of the Convention.

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