At the invitation of the School of Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, UNSW Sydney, A/Prof. Xu Yan from the College attended the Symposium on Tax Dispute Resolution: International Experiences and the Way Forward online, hosted by the School, and made a keynote speech on the Alternative Approaches to International Tax Dispute Resolution on 8 Nov, 2022.
In recent years, with the continuous development of economic globalisation and the increasing progress of Chinese enterprises’ “going out”, the international disputes concerning tax has gradually increased. It is a hot issue in the field of international tax law to explore an effective and acceptable international tax dispute settlement mechanism. This international symposium is part of the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) Tax Dispute Settlement Mechanism Research Programme. The participators were from academics, tax bureaus, international organisations and practice industry in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Qatar and China. They probed into the dispute problems, boundary determination and objection examination involved in the current tax dispute settlement mechanism in their respective countries.
Taking China as an example, Xu Yan introduced the present situation of the international tax dispute settlement mechanism faced by the developing countries, the limitations of the main mutual consultation mechanism and the corresponding alternative dispute settlement mechanism, such as arbitration, mediation and other related systems. She also presented a comparative analysis on the compulsory arbitration provisions in the US, Germany and Australia and other countries, and suggested that the future development direction is to improve the acceptability of arbitration clauses from the perspective of developing countries and to increase the flexible choice mechanism of international tax dispute settlement.
By participating in the exchanges and discussing the topics of common global concern with colleagues around the world in this conference, the mutual understanding among different countries in the areas of law, policy and justice relating to international tax dispute settlement mechanisms was enhanced, and the exchange and learning of advanced ideas both at home and abroad in scientific research on international tax dispute settlement mechanisms were promoted. It also helped promoting CUPL's international academic influence.
