Application of tax treaties to investment funds

Résumé 0

"Among financial investors, investment funds are the ones thatmostly have increased their importance in capital marketswhere the regulation on investment funds is still incipient. Byusing investment funds, individual investors can have thepossibility to participate in various companies as well as inmarket places worldwide without the need of specific andelaborated knowledge of the same companies and markets. After an introductory chapter I start analyzing the definitionand activity of an investment fund, attention is also paid to theUCITS regulation for European investment funds. In the nextchapter I analyze how investment funds are taxed in specificEU Member Countries (i.e. Italy and Luxembourg), in theUnited States and also how investment funds are treated in offshorejurisdictions.The core chapter of the paper discusses the possible applicationof tax treaties to investment funds, in particular from theperspective of the state of source. The definition of beneficialowner and the treatment of income distributed from aninvestment fund are also analyzed in depth. The same chapteralso focuses on the possible application of the OECD PartnershipReport to investment funds.Based on my findings the last chapter is dedicated to some finalconsiderations about the application of tax treaties to investmentfunds. I have always been fascinated by capital markets, theirtechniques and the tax treatment of income arising frominvestments in capital markets. I think that this paper representsa great possibility of acquiring special knowledge in a topicthat I always liked. Moreover, another reason that encouragedme to choose this topic is the fact that still not many scholarshave written about such a hot topic, convincing me to contributeto the discussion thereof. My objective is to analyze thepossible application of tax treaties to investment funds in orderto provide some suggestions as a valid starting point for afuture deeper analysis."