Research On The Concept Of “beneficial Owner” In International Tax Treaty

“Beneficial owner”,an important concept under international tax laws, is meant to limit the distribution of interests, dividends and royalties of offshore enterprises. Since 1977, the OECD “Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital” has adopted the concept of Beneficial Owner, which apparently had an influence on the incorporation of the same concept in the Model Double Taxation Convention between Developed and Developing Countries of United Nations. However, there is no complete definition of this concept either in Model of OECD or United Nations. The Model Tax Convention gave several explanation of applying the “beneficial owner”, but there are still many problems in practice. As a concept generated from common law system, how such can be interpreted and implemented in different legal schemes is an issue worth further elaboration. China national taxation bureau explained how to judge an application is a “beneficial owner” or not in Guoshuihan file No.601 of 2009, public announcement No.30 of 2012, Guoshuihan file No.165 of 2013 and Guoshuihan file No.24 of 2014.These files and the public announcement have played a positive role in guiding the practice, but there are still some problems in explaining the “beneficial owner”. We should learn from other countries and improve it constantly.The full text includes three parts: introduction, main text and conclusion, and the main text divides into four chapters.The first chapter is "proposal and development of the concept of beneficial owner in international tax treaty". This chapter delivers a brief introduction of the proposal and development of beneficial owner by the method of historical analysis.The second chapter elaborates the interpretation of beneficial owner in international tax treaty. In the first place, this chapter elaborates the general interpretation rules of beneficial owner under Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, and analyzes the influence of Commentaries on OECD Model Tax Convention and the Discussion Draft on the interpretation of beneficial owner. Then analyzes the character of the concept of beneficial owner.The third chapter illustrates the rules of the concept of “beneficial owner" in tax treaties signed by China and other States.The forth chapter elaborates the existing problems of “beneficial owner" in tax treaties signed by China and other States, and the author raises four proposals concerning those problems based on the international fiscal meaning of beneficial owner.