Ask-An-Expert Series #1: Tax Treaty Negotiations Toolkit

WEBINAR PROGRAM & SPEAKER BIOS

Biographies (in order of appearance):

Mr. Néstor Venegas was born in Santiago, Chile. He graduated from School of Law of the University of Chile in 2005, was admitted to the Chilean bar in 2006 and obtained an LL.M. on International Taxation in the New York University in 2012. Between 2005 and 2007, Néstor was an associate lawyer in one of Chile’s largest law firms (Carey). Between 2007 and 2018, he worked for the tax authority of Chile (SII) forming part of the technical team that negotiates tax treaties and representing Chile in a number of OECD working groups on tax matters. In 2018, Néstor joined the Tax Treaty Unit of the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration (CTP) and since 2021 is part of the team managing the CTP Global Relations Programme.

Ms. Patricia A. Brown is an Inter-Regional Advisor on Tax Matters in the Financing for Sustainable Development Office at the United Nations.  She began her career at a large international law firm, working in New York and London.  She moved to the U.S. Treasury Department in 1994, and in 1997 became the Deputy International Tax Counsel (Treaty Affairs), with responsibility for co-ordinating U.S. tax treaty policy. From 2006 through 2010, she was a consultant to the OECD, working on the collective investment vehicle and the Treaty Relief and Compliance Enhancement projects.   From 2010 to 2020, she was the Director of the Graduate Tax Program at the University of Miami School of Law.

Ms. Aisha Isa is a Deputy Manager (Tax) in the International Tax Policy Division of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Nigeria. She is a seasoned tax administrator with a specialization in International Taxation. She is also member of the technical team in charge of tax treaty negotiations for Nigeria from 2015 till date and also holds membership in the team saddled with the responsibility of developing domestic policies to implement the OECD BEPS outcome and other international tax rules in Nigeria. One of her core functions includes the provision technical support to the Competent Authority on treaty implementation and related matters in Nigeria.  She also represents Nigeria at several international forums on Tax treaty related issues.

Mr. Chetan Rao is an officer of Indian Revenue Service. He has extensive experience in tax administration, tax evasion investigations and international taxation. He is currently posted as Director in the Foreign Tax and Tax Research Division of Central Board of Direct Taxes and in his current assignment he handles matters relating to tax treaty negotiations and non- transfer pricing MAP cases. He is a country delegate to OECD working Party 1, Task Force on Digital Economy and part of the Indian team negotiating the Two Pillar solution to address the tax challenges arising from digitalization of the economy. 

Ms. Claudia C. Vargas –  Head of the International Taxation Office at DIAN. Attorney at law graduated from the Universidad del Rosario, post-graduate studies in Tax Law from the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá and with an Advanced Master's Degree (Adv. LLM) in International Taxation from the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, one of the top three universities worldwide in this field. Claudia has more than twenty years of experience in consulting, structuring and planning in the area of international and domestic tax law and commercial law for companies on different sectors of the economy, both domestic and multinational.

Advisor to the General Director of the National Taxes and Customs Administration of Colombia - DIAN since February 2019, currently head of the recently created International Taxation Office and head of the Colombian Tax Treaty Negotiating Team.

Member of the Bureau on the OECD Committee on Fiscal Affairs and of the Inclusive Framework on BEPS since 2020. Claudia has been a speaker at different academic events for institutions such as the Colombian Institute of Tax Law - ICDT and the International Fiscal Association - IFA, Colombia Chapter, among others.

Mr. Juan Carlos Trujillo has worked for over 15 years in the International Tax Department of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credito in Mexico. He is part of the Mexican tax treaty negotiation team and has been a Mexican delegate at different working groups such as the OECD Working Party 1, the Task Force on Digital Economy and several working groups regarding BEPS. He has also been an observer at different meetings of the UN Committee of Experts on International Cooperation on Tax Matters.

Mr. Norbert Roller teaches international tax law at FH Campus Wien University and regularly works for the World Bank Group as a Consultant for International Tax Law and Tax Policy. Before, Norbert worked for more than ten years for the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance, where he held various positions including Austrian delegate to the OECD.