KluwerLawOnline.com - Intertax

Article: Exchange of Crypto Information in the ‘Pre-AEOI Phase’: Can Non-CARF Countries Use Group Requests to Obtain Information from Foreign CASPs? [pre-publication]

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:01:06 GMT

The article examines the use of ‘group requests’ by countries to obtain information on crypto assets held by their residents through foreign Crypto Asset Service Providers (CASPs). With information exchanged under the OECD’s Crypto Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) set to commence in 2027, many Global South nations remain uncommitted due to administrative constraint. Many of these countries host significant domestic crypto markets. The author proposes that group requests can serve as a powerful alternative to ‘mimic’ the compliance effects of automatic exchange of information (AEOI) under the CARF. The study outlines a practical methodology for executing these requests. It begins by identifying how countries can overcome the lack of comprehensive macroeconomic data on cross border crypto activities. Countries can use the methodology developed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) methodology to identify relevant CASP jurisdictions. It then details the conditions for validity under the OECD’s ‘foreseeable relevance’ standard, ensuring requests are not dismissed as illegal ‘fishing expeditions’. Finally, the article analyses the legal viability of basing such requests on bilateral tax treaties, tax information exchange agreements (TIEAs), and the Multilateral Convention (MAAC). The article concludes by providing a checklist for a successful use by tax authorities of crypto group requests.

Volume 54 Online ISSN 0165-2826

Article: Sixteen Years of Bitcoin: Resolved and Unresolved Issues in the Taxation of Crypto Assets [pre-publication]

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:01:06 GMT

Bitcoin’s sixteenth anniversary in 2025 provides an important juncture to reflect on how tax law has responded to the emergence of crypto assets. Initially hailed as ‘the monetary experiment of our time’, Bitcoin and its successors have challenged fundamental tax concepts and exposed divergences in domestic and international tax systems. This article first revisits the debate on whether crypto assets should be characterized as ‘money’, demonstrating that classification matters only to the extent that tax consequences diverge across regimes. It then examines four unresolved issues that continue to occupy scholars and policymakers: the characterization of mining rewards as entrepreneurial income or windfall gains; the treatment of staking rewards as active or passive income; the tax consequences of blockchain hard forks; and the classification of collateral use of crypto assets in decentralized finance. Each issue reveals tensions between traditional tax analogies and the novel features of blockchain-based activities, highlighting trade-offs between theoretical purity and administrability. While global convergence is unlikely due to foundational differences in tax systems, the analysis underscores the importance of clarity, consistency, and functional approaches to ensure that taxation keeps pace with technological innovation.

Volume 54 Online ISSN 0165-2826

Editorial: Taxation of Crypto Assets [pre-publication]

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:01:06 GMT

Volume 54 Online ISSN 0165-2826

Guest Editorial: The Forgotten Addendum

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:01:06 GMT

Volume 54 Online ISSN 0165-2826

Remote Work and PEs: Reconciling German Tax Practice and OECD Standards

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:01:06 GMT

The widespread adoption of remote work poses significant challenges for applying permanent establishment (PE) rules, especially in cross-border scenarios. This article examines the differing treatment of home office arrangements under German domestic law and the OECD Model Tax Convention (OECD MC) 2017 with its corresponding Commentary (OECD MC Commentary). The recent February 2024 guidance in Germany by the German Federal Ministry of Finance provides that a home office typically does not constitute a PE except under extraordinary circumstances. This even applies when the employer (1) covers the costs for the home office and its equipment; (2) concludes a rental agreement with the employee for the home office unless the employer holds actual rights of disposal; or (3) does not provide an alternative workplace. The rationale is that the employer typically lacks sufficient ‘power of disposal’ over the employee’s private home office. Exceptions apply when the employee performs management functions conferring such control.

However, the pragmatic approach applied by the German fiscal authorities contrasts with the broader interpretation in the OECD MC Commentary 2017 which may lead to unintended PE creation and double taxation. Through a comparative analysis, including selected national practices from other European countries and a case study, the article advocates for the OECD MC Commentary 2017 to integrate similar delimitation criteria to enhance legal certainty, reduce compliance burdens, and better align international tax rules with modern remote work realities.

Volume 54 Online ISSN 0165-2826

Determinants of Tax Complexity: Evidence from a Developing Country

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:01:06 GMT

This study investigates the determinants of tax complexity in Indonesia, focusing on the perspectives of tax officers and firms, and thus provides a case study relevant to developing countries. Understanding tax complexity in this context is crucial as developing nations frequently encounter legislative, fiscal, and administrative challenges that exacerbate their tax complexity. Complexity can hinder investment, impair tax revenue collection, and impede economic development. The authors adapt a global survey instrument to the Indonesian context and collect responses from Indonesian tax officers and firms. Transfer pricing is perceived as the most complex tax regulation which is consistent with cross-country studies. However, in contrast to the global findings, statutory tax rates and taxes on dividends rank second and third in Indonesia. While Indonesian tax officers emphasize the complexity of transfer pricing regulations, firms are more concerned about the complexity of tax procedures, especially tax guidance and tax audits. Furthermore, comparative analyses show that tax officers perceive tax regulations as being more complex than tax procedures. In contrast, firms perceive the opposite, particularly for tax audits. The findings offer a nuanced picture of tax complexity in a developing country and provide guidance for tax reforms in Indonesia. They also serve as a commencement for further analyses of developing countries.

Volume 54 Online ISSN 0165-2826

Income Taxation of the Digital Economy: The Advantages and Disadvantages of Digital Services Taxes from an African Perspective

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:01:06 GMT

As the digital economy continues to evolve, so does the ability of multinational entities (MNEs) to avoid taxes. The incidence of tax avoidance is more acute in those jurisdictions where they do not have a physical presence which is a prerequisite for taxation rights for source jurisdictions under current international taxation norms. This compounds the domestic resource mobilization conundrum of most low-income countries (LICs) of which the majority are invariably African jurisdictions at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent Trump administration’s United States Agency for International Development (USAID) cuts have resulted in a drastic decline in overseas development aid. Some African states have also adopted the first-mover advantage of implementing digital services taxes (DSTs) in a replication of efforts to alleviate the tide of MNEs’ base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) activities by some western source jurisdictions. This research explores the DSTs that have recently been implemented by some African territories in terms of their challenges, advantages, and disadvantages. Though their disadvantages are quantitatively superior to their advantages, the latter seem to enjoy qualitative preeminence since the African jurisdictions that have implemented them have reduced MNEs’ BEPS activities, enhanced their domestic resource mobilization exertions and, most importantly, have managed to expedite multilateral cooperation efforts to resolve the current imbalances in international taxation.

Volume 54 Online ISSN 0165-2826

Policy Note: Current UN Tax Policy Note: Creating the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on International Taxation to Improve ‘Throughput Legitimacy’ in UN Tax Policymaking

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:01:06 GMT

Developing countries face ongoing challenges within international taxation – including influencing agenda-setting and decision-making to capacity building resources. The major issue underpinning each of these challenges is the lack of a fairer and more transparent international institution to support developing countries in international tax policymaking. The 2023 Report of the Secretary-General on the Promotion of Inclusive and Effective International Tax Cooperation at the United Nations is a ‘critical juncture’ in establishing fair and transparent international institutions. At its core, an international institution must ultimately establish ‘throughput legitimacy’ to be regarded as fairer and more transparent. The aim of this tax policy note is to guide policymakers and the policy work of the new 2025–2029 United Nations Tax Committee term as it considers new policy reforms to establish an international tax institution that is fairer and more transparent for developing countries. Part 2 summarizes the governance gaps at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and UN leading to these institutions lacking fairness and transparency. Part 3 highlights two key elements which can improve ‘throughput legitimacy’ for developing countries: (1) Regionalism and (2) Creation of a Political Tax Forum at the UN. This policy note concludes by proposing a new regionalism-based political tax forum at the UN – called the UN High-level Political Forum on International Taxation. The UN High-level Political Forum on International Taxation can be modelled similar to the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. The author is an expert participant in the policy work of the United Nations Tax Committee, and the policy recommendations in this policy note have been published on the UN Tax Committee website to provide tax policy guidance on this issue (https://financing.desa.un. org/untc-31st-session-stakeholder-input).

Volume 54 Online ISSN 0165-2826

Literature Review: Sérgio André Rocha, ‘Non-defined Terms in Double Tax Conventions’, Termos Não Definidos em Tratados Internacionais Tributários, Casa do Direito, 2024 by Ricardo André Galendi Júnior

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:01:06 GMT

Volume 54 Online ISSN 0165-2826

The 2025 OECD Model Tax Convention Update: A Mountain in Labour Gives Birth to a Mouse

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:01:06 GMT

Volume 54 Online ISSN 0165-2826

Not ‘Super Tax Havens’ After All

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:01:06 GMT

When crypto-assets were first introduced, tax experts worried that they might become ‘super tax havens’. With over a decade and a half of hindsight, this article questions whether this tax-enforcement doomsday scenario has materialized or may yet materialize. The article’s conclusion is that the answer is ‘no’. To be sure, crypto-assets are an instrument of tax evasion, but they are not better (and maybe even worse) at facilitating tax evasion than traditional tools such as cash or secrecy jurisdictions. With some adjustments, traditional, time-tested mechanisms of tax enforcement can address tax evasion with cryptocurrencies at least as effectively as addressing any other form of tax evasion. The reason for this is rather simple: contrary to initial hopes (or warnings, depending on one’s perspective), the crypto-assets markets are not disintermediated, not decentralized, and not anonymous, and they are unlikely to become any of those things. If governments chose not to enforce tax laws in the context of crypto-assets, this would be a policy choice, not an inevitability attributable to the nature of blockchain technology.

Volume 54 Online ISSN 0165-2826

CARF’s Impact on the Crypto Marketplace: An Equal and Opposite Reaction?

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:01:06 GMT

In this article centred on the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), a leading US tax practitioner based in Zurich shares his expectations on the fall-out from the incoming crypto asset reporting regimes. Grounding his views in precedents from recent tax reporting for conventional asset classes, he forecasts resistance from the industry and investors, leading to novel enforcement challenges faced by tax authorities when confronted by an agile and motivated target. In closing, he sets out a series of enhanced enforcement proposals that tax authorities might adopt to further CARF compliance.

Volume 54 Online ISSN 0165-2826

Cryptoasset Taxation and Accounting: Aligning Standards for Cross-Border Clarity and Compliance

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:01:06 GMT

This article examines how accounting standards shape the taxation of cryptoassets, focusing on key differences under the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP), and selected offshore jurisdictions. Fragmented accounting and tax frameworks create substantial obstacles to cross-border compliance despite their growing economic significance. The article draws on a comparative regulatory analysis and corporate case studies (MicroStrategy, Coinbase, and Tesla) and identifies three persistent frictions at the book-tax interface. First, classification friction arises because jurisdictions treat the same asset as intangible property, a financial instrument, or a commodity thereby creating uncertainty for fiat-backed stablecoins and security-like tokens. Second, timing friction stems from mismatches between accrual-based financial reporting and realization-based tax rules especially for staking rewards, crypto lending, decentralized finance (DeFi), and derivatives. Third, valuation friction reflects tension between historical cost and fair value compounded by volatility and fragmented liquidity which disproportionately affects complex instruments and international structures. The article proposes the tax-accounting alignment framework (TAAF) as a conceptual roadmap to address these challenges. It prioritizes economic substance over legal form using functional classification, blockchain finality as an objective recognition trigger and adaptive valuation thresholds. The framework illustrates how these principles can simplify compliance and enhance tax transparency in cross-border and arbitrage-sensitive settings.

Volume 54 Online ISSN 0165-2826

Literature Review : Caroline Glenk, Verlustverrechnung bei Personengesellschaften und anderen transparent besteuerten Gesellschaftsformen – Eine rechtsvergleichende Analyse zwischen Deutschland, Frankreich und den USA, Loss compensation in partnerships and other transparent tax entities – A comparative legal analysis between Germany, France, and the USA, Nomos, 2022

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:01:06 GMT

Volume 54 Online ISSN 0165-2826

Exchange of Crypto Information in the ‘Pre-AEOI Phase’: Can Non-CARF Countries Use Group Requests to Obtain Information from Foreign CASPs?

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:01:06 GMT

Volume 54 Online ISSN 0165-2826

Sixteen Years of Bitcoin: Resolved and Unresolved Issues in the Taxation of Crypto Assets

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:01:06 GMT

Volume 54 Online ISSN 0165-2826

Editorial: Taxation of Crypto Assets

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:01:06 GMT

Volume 54 Online ISSN 0165-2826