日本税收协定与国内税法的相互关系——协调法案的作用.pdf

Interaction between Tax Treaties and Domestic Law in Japan – the Role of a Coordinating Statute YOSHIHIRO MASUI University of Tokyo 1. INTRODUCTION One of the weak spots in the recent OECD/G20 initiative against BEPS is the implementation of treaty obligations into domestic law of each state. Even when the recommendations in the 2015 deliverables make their way to the agreed provisions of the expected multilateral instrument, the exact degree of their implementation in each state is entirely left to an internal deliberation within each state under its con- stitutional structure. There is no guarantee that all states involved will fully implement the treaty obligations. Some states might have the in- centive and the ability to “underride,” “override,” or “half-ride” the new treaty provisions. This problem is not unique to the implementation of the BEPS mul- tilateral instrument. The relationship between treaty and domestic law is a more general topic prevalent in international taxation. At a practi- cal level, taxpayers and their advisors are facing issues in the interac- tion between existing tax treaty provisions and domestic law provisions on a daily basis. It is no wonder why this topic has been discussed by prominent commentators in a number of occasions.1 This essay describes a solution in Japan on some of these issues. It focuses on the role of a coordinating statute that is legislated by the Diet. Since 1969, Japan has a unified statutory scheme to make a bridge between tax treaty law and domestic law: “the Law concerning the Special Rule for Income Tax Law, Corporation Tax Law, and Lo- cal Tax Law in Implementing Tax Treaties (Law No. 46 of 1969, last amended by Law No. 9 of 2015)”, in short, Tax Treaty Implementati