Legal Regulation Of Real Estate Investment Trusts From The Perspective Of International Tax Law

Born in1960s United States, Real Estate Investment Trusts, REITs, have been inhot pursuit by a large amount of investors all over the world for decades, due to thegreat significances in broadening the investment channels, stimulating the estatemarket, cultivating and upgrading the capital market and promoting the developmentof the society.Since the globalization of investment in and through REITs，it begins to be aninternational affair concerning the cross-border international taxation. In2007, OECDCommittee on Affairs started to examine the tax treaty issues that arise from suchinvestment. The results of this effort appear in2008as a report entitled “Tax TreatyIssues Related to REITs”. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the cross-bordertaxation on REITs, also to propose some advices for China in dealing with thetaxation of REITs in the background of the globalization.The first part of the paper is the basic introduction of REITs, clarifying theconcept, history and characters. The core of this chapter is the analysis of theoperating process and the legal nexus of tax in REITs especially in the cross-borderREITs.The second part of this paper is about the international taxation regime on REITsfrom two aspects. First of all, the chapter provides the comparative analysis on REITs regime between United States, Singapore, HK and Taiwan Region. Second, this partdiscusses about the OECD report “Tax Treaty Issues Related to REITs”, focusing onthe status and countermeasures of taxation issues in cross-border REITs with respectto the application of the OECD Model Tax Convention.The third pat of this paper mainly discuses the establishment of REITs regime inChina. In the beginning of this chapter, the feasible analysis of C-REITs is made fromthree perspectives, including economic prospect, legal dimension and pilot practice.However, the paper also indicates the obstacles in taxation regime of C-REITs. In theend of this part, legislative suggestions related to REITs taxation in domestic law andbilateral tax treaty are proposed by adopting the experiences from other countries andthe OECD.