Introduction

The current, extremely volatile financial and economic environment poses many challenges to most taxpayers. Dealing with external funding may be one of these challenges, also because funding from third parties has become much stricter and seldom in the form of pure debt capital, i.e. loans, and of pure equity capital, i.e. ordinary shares. Rather, and also due to a variety of other non-tax reasons, instruments for finance and investment have become numerous and more complex, mostly combining elements of both worlds, the so-called hybrid financial instruments. Their spectrum ranges from shares with features typical for loans (e.g. redeemable preference shares) to loans with features typical of ordinary shares (e.g. profit-participating loans). Together with the increasing globalization of the world economy, financial markets have undergone a process of internationalization. The increasing integration between financial markets, and the resulting opening to cross-border capital flows, are illustrated in a constant increase of the number of and in the level of sophistication in the structuring of cross-border financial transactions. They are accompanied by, as well as made possible due to, institutional developments, e.g. deregulation, and by diversifications in market participants, e.g. participants of cross-border mergers and acquisitions.