After the
subprime crisis (2008), the G-20 and the OECD prompted in 2013 an action plan
to address abusive tax planning practices which cause countries base erosion
and profit shifting (BEPS). They designed an international strategy against
both aggressive and abusive international tax planning -which in my opinion are
not the same- and decided to fight them with 15 actions.
Although these actions had obvious anti tax
avoidance foundations -sustained in International Tax Law principles and fiscal
international jurisprudence-, they clearly had also a moral and subjective
approach.
Many of
the tax planning strategies performed by multinational companies (MNCs) and
exposed in BEPS project were completely legal (in the strict sense of law
compliance or non violation of laws, of course) and even, in some cases,
demonstrate potentially and creditable economic substance (assuming that a
judicial process had begun) but still they were considered undesirable and
harmful. Worse still, they were considered as immoral -rather than illegal-
and, therefore, MNC´s become the enemies of the international tax system.
