For the past 12 years, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has been hosting an annual meeting of government officials working on tax treaties. That meeting has now become the largest regular inter-governmental event dedicated to tax treaty issues: 289 tax officials from 107 countries and international organisations participated in the meeting held in September 2007.

As 2008 will be the 50th anniversary of the publication of the first draft of the OECD Model Tax Convention, the OECD has decided to invite all interested parties, including business representatives, tax advisers and academics, to the 2008 edition of that meeting. Indeed, it was in 1958 that the Fiscal Committee of the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC, which became the OECD a few years later) published the first part of what subsequently became the OECD Model Tax Convention.
 
The 2008 meeting will therefore be an open conference that will provide an in-depth exploration of key issues of tax treaty policy and practice, primarily through the use of case studies. Panels of distinguished tax treaty specialists from OECD and non-OECD tax administrations, the private sector and the academic community will examine a wide range of topics, including permanent establishments, royalties, services, beneficial ownership and dispute resolution (see programme).

This 50th anniversary conference will be held in Paris at the new OECD Conference Centre (2, rue André Pascal, 16e arrondissement) on Monday-Tuesday, 8-9 September 2008, just after the Brussels Congress of the International Fiscal Association (IFA).