Tax Treaty Override Issue Has Nations Squaring Off in UN Talks

Countries with large tax treaty networks said Wednesday that a prospective United Nations tax agreement on cross-border services would see far less uptake if it required an automatic override of existing treaties.

Germany, France, Canada, and others told the committee drafting the UN deal that they want power over the process of aligning the deal with their existing tax treaties through bilateral negotiations.

Tax treaties are political deals that involve trade-offs, and giving the new UN cross-border services agreement, or protocol, an automatic override would upset the balance in those treaties, several delegates said.

“If we would only choose the ...