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At a business meeting on April 1, 2014, the Senate Foreign Relations committee approved two proposed treaties with Hungary and Chile, tax treaty amendments (“protocols”) with Switzerland and Luxembourg, and a protocol amending the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters.

As in recent years, improved information sharing and limitations on “treaty shopping” (the inappropriate use of a tax treaty by residents of a third country) continue to be important U.S. objectives.

Highlights of the approved measures include the following:

• The proposed treaty between Hungary and the U.S. encompasses a comprehensive “Limitation on Benefits” provision, unlike the current treaty with Hungary, of 1979, which contains no such limitation, and also provides for a full exchange of information. The new Limitation on Benefits provision includes a measure granting so-called “derivative benefits” similar to the provision included in all recent U.S. tax treaties with European Union members.