The project against harmful tax practices is an effort at layering. The
results are meagre. Bilateral information exchange upon request is insufficient
to effectively curb tax evasion; what is needed is multilateral automatic
exchange (e.g. Sullivan, 2007). Nevertheless, the OECD project is remarkable
in that for the first time in the history of international taxation the
principle of national tax sovereignty had been challenged. But the OECD
projectwas not intended to change the institutions of double tax avoidance
themselves. Itwas established apart fromthe DTAregime, and the connection
between the two was deliberately left open. From an actor’s perspective
this is one of the advantages of layering: since two formally separated
institutions are involved, the original rules and the layered ones do not necessarily
have to be consistent.Ultimately, instead of changing the principles
of theDTAregime directly, information exchange supplements the existing
rules in the hope of keeping them viable despite pressure for change.