Construction Of Cross-Border Star Personal Income Anti-Avoidance Rules

With the continuous globalization of economic development,exchanges between countries are becoming more and more frequent,especially cultural and entertainment exchanges.In recent years,the entertainment industry has risen rapidly,and people's entertainment life has become increasingly rich.The most representative of people's favorite is the star.Nowadays,celebrities in various countries are no longer confined to domestic development,and have gone abroad to perform in various forms,such as celebrity world tours,tour performances,celebrity meets and other forms of performance.The most representative of these stars are concentrated in the entertainment and sports industries.Once these industries have cross-border nature,cross-border tax avoidance for stars will bring advantages that other industries do not have.The income of cross-border stars is high,especially the income of their cross-border performances usually occupy a high proportion,and the tax rates applicable to them as taxpayers are generally very high.Taking China as an example,the highest tax rate can reach 45%,and cross-border stars as high-income people often apply the highest tax rate.High tax rates are unbearable for cross-border stars,so cross-border stars look for various tax avoidance methods to avoid the high tax burden brought by these high tax rates,such as immigration to avoid the tax burden of high-tax countries,borrowing foreign shell companies to sign agreements to makethemselves hired,and only receive low salaries to avoid taxes,etc.These tax avoidance measures will further exacerbate the loss of international taxes and distort international tax competition.These cross-border tax avoidance methods have caused the loss of taxation in related countries and even international taxation,and the order of international tax competition will be severely damaged.In order to deal with the above-mentioned problems,some countries and international organizations have put forward specific anti-avoidance measures from different levels of national laws and regulations and international agreements,such as withholding tax systems in some countries,Article 17 of the OECD Model Tax Agreement,Bilateral or multilateral tax treaties between countries,etc.These anti-avoidance measures have played a preventive role in preventing taxation of cross-border stars,but in the face of the ever-increasing tax avoidance methods of cross-border stars,these rules are pale and unable to cope.Both Article 17 of the OECD model and bilateral tax treaties between countries only symbolically stipulate that the source country has the right to tax cross-border stars' income derived from their activities in that country.There are no specific anti-tax avoidance measures for cross-border stars.And cross-border stars often take advantage of the differences in the domestic tax systems of various countries to achieve the purpose of tax avoidance.At present,most countries still do not pay attention to the problem of cross-border tax avoidance of celebrities,and do not realize the huge harm caused by celebrity cross-border tax avoidance,Not to mention the full use of anti-tax avoidance rules similar to Article 17 of the OECD model to vigorously crack down on cross-border tax avoidance of celebrities.First of all,the OECD model itself is not compulsory.Although most countries have stipulated in the bilateral tax treaties on cross-border tax avoidance of stars with reference to Article 17 of the OECD Model,many countries have made reservations to Article 17.For example,the United States explicitly reserves the right to limit paragraph 1 to situations where an artist or athlete earns a specified amount in the model note.Moreover,the content of Article 17 of the OECD is not clear.It merely symbolically grants the taxing right of the country of origin,not to mention almost all tax havens in the world such as the Virgin Islands,Bermuda,Cayman Islands and other countries or regions,these countries or regions have not signed bilateral tax treaties with other countries and regions.Therefore,the space for star cross-border tax avoidance is huge,and the relevant regulations governing their tax avoidance appear to be inadequate.In view of the fact that cross-border stars use the differences in the tax systems of various countries to achieve their tax avoidance purposes,and the particularity of the industries in which cross-border stars are engaged in often provides them with many convenient conditions for tax avoidance.Therefore,it is extremely necessary to construct anti-tax avoidance rules for star cross-border personal income.This article is divided into four chapters.The first chapter is a legal analysis of the cross-border tax avoidance behavior of celebrities,the legal definition of the concept of cross-border celebrities from Article 17 of the OECD template,and the legal nature and characteristics of cross-border tax avoidance behaviors of celebrities,And explain the necessity of constructing anti-tax avoidance rules for new cross-border personal income from the perspective of the harm caused by cross-border tax avoidance of stars;The second chapter analyzes the legal status of cross-border star anti-avoidance rules,and introduces the current status of relevant anti-avoidance rules from the perspective of domestic law and international law,international law mainly takes Article 17 of the OECD model as an example,and domestic rules are mainly domestic withholding tax systems in each country,and analyzes the new challenges of cross-border star tax avoidance that bring new challenges to domestic and international taxes;The third chapter is the legal path of constructing anti-tax avoidance rules for cross-border star personal income.It analyzes the principles,authority,and relief of anti-tax avoidance rules,and uses Pavarotti and Messi tax avoidance cases as examples to explain the legal effects of constructing anti-avoidance rules;The fourth chapter is to make corresponding suggestions from the level of international law and domestic law to construct anti-avoidance rules for cross-border star personal income.The construction of anti-tax avoidance rules for personal income taxation of star cross-border performances must focus on the particularity of cross-border taxavoidance of stars,optimize existing problems in the current regulations,and construct the anti-tax avoidance rules of personal income tax for star cross-border performances in a targeted manner.Anti-tax avoidance rules for individual income tax for cross-border performances of celebrities have been established at the two levels of international law.Therefore,it is very necessary to comprehensively construct efficient anti-avoidance rules for cross-border star tax avoidance,in order to avoid the negative impact of cross-border stars on the domestic tax system and even the international tax system.