Canada-US Treaty Flowchart — Limitation on Benefits

Author(s): John Venu­ti, Jason Con­nery, Dou­glas Poms, and Alex­ey Man­a­suev
Date:  June 15, 2009To be enti­tled to ben­e­fits under income tax treaties, com­pa­nies must sat­is­fy eli­gi­bil­i­ty require­ments. This arti­cle includes flow­charts to help prac­ti­tion­ers nav­i­gate the eli­gi­bil­i­ty require­ments of the lim­i­ta­tion on ben­e­fits pro­vi­sion of the Canada‑U.S. income tax treaty.1

Income tax treaties may exempt busi­ness income from source coun­try income tax­es and elim­i­nate or reduce domes­tic with­hold­ing tax­es on pay­ments between res­i­dents of the con­tract­ing states to an applic­a­ble income tax treaty. To be enti­tled to ben­e­fits under an income tax treaty with the Unit­ed States, com­pa­nies must not only be a res­i­dent of the oth­er con­tract­ing state, but gen­er­al­ly must also sat­is­fy at least one of the tests in the LOB pro­vi­sion, if applic­a­ble.

The flow­charts in this arti­cle focus on the eli­gi­bil­i­ty of Cana­di­an res­i­dent com­pa­nies claim­ing ben­e­fits on income that would oth­er­wise be sub­ject to U.S. tax­a­tion. This arti­cle does not address the eli­gi­bil­i­ty for ben­e­fits under the LOB pro­vi­sion of the treaty for estates, trusts, part­ner­ships, or enti­ties treat­ed as fis­cal­ly trans­par­ent for U.S. or Cana­di­an tax purposes.2 This arti­cle is based on the treaty, the asso­ci­at­ed pro­to­cols, and the U.S. Trea­sury Department’s tech­ni­cal expla­na­tion to the fifth pro­to­col. This arti­cle is the fifth in a series of arti­cles 4 that pro­vides flow­charts to assist prac­ti­tion­ers: …[lab_subscriber_download_form download_id=14]

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