The Optimal Way to Resolve Tax Treaty Disputes: Litigation or Arbitration?

[Extract] The latest 2017 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) statistics on the resolution of tax treaty disputes, through the unique tax treaty resolution mechanism known as the Mutual Agreement Procedure (MAP), show that tax administrations around the world are now resolving more disputes than ever before. While this is a welcome development, these statistics also report that the deluge of new tax treaty disputes has meant that globally, the inventory of unresolved tax treaty disputes is still increasing. As these OECD statistics now cover 85 jurisdictions (including Australia) and almost all MAP cases worldwide, the rising number of unresolved tax controversies is clearly a problem of global proportions.


This is an abbreviated version of: Markham, M, “Litigation, Arbitration and Mediation in International Tax Disputes: An Assessment of Whether This Results in Competitive or Collaborative Relations” (2018) 11 Contemporary Asia Arbitration Journal 277-304.