Reconsidering the application and interpretation of anti-treaty shopping rules in the context of developing countries

The application and interpretation of tax treaties within the particular context of developing countries is still a largely unexplored area. The proposed idea in this article is to reconsider the application and interpretation of anti-treaty shopping rules considering their impact on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and the fundamental need of developing countries to attract investment inflows. This article demonstrates that the most common measures to address treaty shopping create administrative costs, uncertainty and are likely to dissuade FDI. Therefore, tax treaties concluded by developing countries should be fundamentally more concerned with promoting FDI than with preventing abuse and therefore legal certainty should be a priority rather than addressing treaty shopping practices.