General provisions

Determined on March 8, 2011 by Faculty of Law's Teaching Committee, Uppsala University, by virtue of Chapter 2 Section 5 a of the Higher Education Act and Chapter 6 Section 14 and 15 of the Higher Education Ordinance. The course plan enters into force on March 15, 2011.

In General

The course is 15 university points (15 ECTS credits) and an optional course at advanced level in the studies for the degree Master of Laws, according to the degree requirements adopted 16 April 2007 by the Board of the Faculty of Law of Uppsala University. The course is held in English.

Entry requirements

In general, Swedish students must have attained five passes out of the six courses given at basic level of the LLM programme. All the mandatory phases of the course in which the student has not attained a pass must have been fulfilled. Swedish students must have passed the exam for Term course 5 (tax law, company law and business administration).

Foreign students must at least have passed two years of studies in law and have passed the basic course in tax law at their home university.

If special reasons exist the board of exemption may grant exemption from the acceptance requirements.

Learning outcomes

After having completed the course, students should have the ability:

to understand the relationship between tax treaties and strictly national law,

to understand the method for applying tax treaties,

to be able to interpret tax treaties by applying different sources of law stemming from both national law and international law (in particular the OECD MTC),

to solve complicated legal problems concerning the most vital articles of the OECD MTC.

Content

The course objective is to provide knowledge of tax treaty law. This includes the relation between strictly national law and tax treaties, as well as the application and interpretation of tax treaties. Emphasis is put on the interpretation of tax treaties modelled after the OECD Model Tax Convention.

The course has the following content

- the status of tax treaties in relation to strictly national law, including constitutional law,

- the different parts of tax treaties including articles on definitions, distributive articles, method article, and other articles,

- the interaction between distributive articles and the method article,

- the interaction between strictly national law and tax treaty law,

- the meaning of residence according to tax treaties,

- the taxation of business income and allocation of income to permanent establishments,

- the taxation of dividends, interest and royalty,

- the taxation of artists and artist companies,

- different methods for the elimination of double taxation,

- exchange of information,

- mechanisms for dispute resolution according to tax treaties, for example the procedure for mutual agreement.

Instruction

The teaching is focused on seminars where students discuss cases previously prepared in smaller groups of three to five students. There are also lectures and visits to the Swedish Tax Agency, law firms and accountancy firms.

Assessment

Examination will be made through individually written memoranda and also a written exam at the end of the course. Only students who have passed the requirements on participation in the seminars and who have submitted memoranda, have the right to undergo the written examination.

The grades given are Fail (U), and the passing grades Pass (B), Pass with credit (Ba) and Pass with distinction (AB).