Rome Double Tax Convention: The First Multilateral Treaty for the Purpose of Avoiding Double Taxation

Abstract

This paper presents the story of the world's first multilateral double taxation treaty, a treaty concluded in Rome after the end of World War I by all the successor states of former Austria-Hungary with the exception of Czechoslovakia. On the centennial of this treaty the authors first present its historical, legal and economic background and attempt to determine which of the quite few already existing double taxation treaties served as the model for a document which preceded the work done under the auspices of the League of Nations on the topic of double taxation. Concluding that it was the 1899 Austria-Hungary/Prussia double taxation treaty which served as inspiration for the drafters of the 1922 Rome double tax convention, the authors continue to analyse and compare their individual provisions. Subsequently, the authors turn to the question of why this multilateral treaty never came into force and present interesting historical data found in the archives of Yugoslavia. In the end, the authors conclude that the tale of the Rome double taxation convention reminds us in our modern environment about the values of common sense even in adverse political circumstances and clearly shows that multilateralism should not be abandoned as a prospective option.