Over the past few years, the European Union has targeted multinational corporations using tax planning strategies to reduce corporate tax burdens. Recently, the EU has launched an investigation into tax deals between Amazon (AMZN) and the country of Luxembourg. With an array of subsidiaries within European countries, Amazon’s European headquarters… – Continue reading
Luxembourg’s business-friendly tax laws have saved companies billions. The party’s almost over. On a typical day, thousands of passengers pull into Luxembourg’s central train station and traverse the busy shopping street of Rue de la Gare, where everything from pastries to rain boots is on offer. Few, however, step inside… – Continue reading
The income tax department on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that it intends to move a plea seeking transfer of the two other cases related to transfer of certain passive infrastructure assets of Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular to the apex court. Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular got Gujarat High… – Continue reading
Lobby groups representing Google, Amazon and other powerful US tech multinationals have launched a fierce attack on global plans to stamp out artificial corporate structures used to avoid tax. In responses to the latest stage of a two-year, G20-led programme of international tax reform, lobbyists for the US tech industry… – Continue reading
Prepared to take tax evaders to court. The Australian Tax Office has investigated 25 international technology companies over the past 18 months for tax avoidance as part of its ongoing crackdown on elaborate cross-border tax structures and profit shifting. The federal government late last year gave the ATO extra resources… – Continue reading
New Zealand First is concerned the Uber ride service and multinational companies like it are using elaborate tax shelters to rip off hard working Kiwi taxpayers. The Party will be closely following the government’s newly announced review of small passenger services. “Why is it when a multinational with a track… – Continue reading
Lobbyists representing firms including Google, Amazon and Apple claim ‘fundamental flaws’ in G20-led reforms The World Economic Forum in Davos, where Google, Microsoft and Facebook executives will discuss the digital economy on Thursday. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images Lobby groups representing Google, Amazon and other powerful US tech multinationals have launched… – Continue reading
Democratic lawmakers Tuesday pushed legislation to stop U.S. companies from reincorporating overseas to reduce their tax bills, saying a wave of so-called inversions last year has nearly doubled the revenue the federal government will lose from those moves over the next decade. The bill would make it tougher for U.S…. – Continue reading
On Dec. 12, 2014, Rep. John Delaney (D-MD) proposed a new version of his “repatriation holiday” tax plan. The latest version would require multinational corporations to pay a token amount of taxes on their accumulated offshore profits and exempt those profits from any further U.S. income tax. Delaney’s new plan… – Continue reading
Competition commissioner urging swift conclusion to open investigations The European Commission has said it will publish the result of its investigation into the Government’s tax arrangements with Apple by the spring. Speaking in Brussels, a commission spokesman said competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager “wants to focus on the four open in-depth… – Continue reading
Observers of offshore financial centres will know that post 2008 they have been weathering a perfect storm. Firstly, reduced transactional flows, simply because there is less money available for structured finance and investment generally. Secondly, a constant barrage of negative publicity, which deliberately seeks to conflate tax evasion and tax… – Continue reading
AROUND the world, large, listed companies are troubled by cyber-security risks and company taxes, yet these concerns remain fairly low on the priority list of boards of directors. According to a PwC report on nonexecutive directors’ practices and remuneration trends, 60% of directors said their board had not discussed public… – Continue reading
Jan 19 (Reuters) – Chinese companies that have borrowed heavily in dollars face sharply higher currency hedging costs at a time when the yuan’s rising volatility means they need to hedge more. The yuan unexpectedly weakened 2.4 percent against the dollar in 2014, its first significant loss since the landmark… – Continue reading
Amazon made its bones avoiding taxes, and its tax history could bear on its current EU troubles. Amazon got bigger and more nimble than anyone else by betting on America’s love of tax avoidance.By edging the competition with no sales tax, Amazon grew to become the poster child of sales… – Continue reading
In May of 2014, financial firm Credit Suisse AG pled guilty to serious criminal charges. The giant bank aided and assisted approximately 22,000 wealthy U.S. taxpayers (whose names Credit Suisse AG escaped having to send to the Justice Department for law enforcement) for over a decade in filing false income… – Continue reading
Brian Hayes: Ireland has nothing to apologise for Ireland is not a tax haven and should not allow itself to be “scapegoated” by larger European countries, Fine Gael MEP Brian Hayes has said. Ireland had nothing to apologise for and was critical of the approach taken to a number of member… – Continue reading
High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. Luxembourg’s unorthodox tax deal with Amazon was laid bare by European Commission investigators on Friday, who believe it artificially lowered and “capped” the online retailer’s tax bill,… – Continue reading
The debate of the last couple of years about corporation tax in Europe resembles a popular ‘whodunnit’: point at an obvious suspect before realising that things are not as they seem. The storyline is still being written, but it risks taking a shortcut by identifying some politically convenient suspects, without… – Continue reading
New Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has dismissed concerns from business and tax experts that changing the international tax rules could result in Australia losing mining tax revenue to nations like China, describing it as a “furphy”. Mr Frydenberg has also raised Australia’s competitiveness internationally as a concern, saying corporate taxes… – Continue reading
BRUSSELS– Amazon.com Inc.’s “cosmetic” tax arrangements in Luxembourg may give the U.S. online retailer an illegal advantage over competitors, European Union regulators said Friday, marking the latest phase of a widening crackdown on alleged sweetheart tax deals for multinationals. Amazon is one of four companies whose tax affairs are being… – Continue reading
High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights.http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3e5cbbfa-9bff-11e4-b6cc-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz3OtSPx5Gf The European Parliament is poised to launch a full inquiry into sweetheart… – Continue reading
He was known to authorities as Brazil’s black-market central banker, a career criminal who smuggled cash for the rich and powerful by private jet and armored car. Now Alberto Youssef — a rum-runner turned money-launderer turned reputed billionaire — has emerged as a principal player in the biggest corruption scandal… – Continue reading
(Bloomberg) -– So how did the previously obscure term tax inversions become part of Washington parlance, fodder for the next presidential campaign and the issue that helped derail a U.S. Treasury nominee? Thank, or blame, depending on your perspective, cutting-edge tax lawyers, populist Democrats, a banana seller, a drugmaker, a… – Continue reading
Quebec Finance Minister Carlos Leitão said in December he would ask Revenu Québec to look into whether Bombardier Inc. used Luxembourg as a way to avoid paying provincial taxes. What he didn’t say was that the results of those inquiries would remain secret. Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists discovered… – Continue reading
Outlook A missive from Amazon drops into my inbox. The retailer, tech giant, delivery drone developer and candidate to replace Spectre in the next Bond movie, wants to trumpet the thousands of new jobs it created last year. Six thousand, in case you were interested, and apparently that is the… – Continue reading
Severe council cuts could be reduced if multinational companies paid their fair share of tax, according to councillors. Labour Cllr Paul Merry, of Wanstead ward, and Cllr Varinder Singh-Bola, of Cranbrook ward, will put forward a motion at a council meeting this week calling on the authority to back the… – Continue reading
Severe council cuts could be reduced if multinational companies paid their fair share of tax, according to councillors. Labour Cllr Paul Merry, of Wanstead ward, and Cllr Varinder Singh-Bola, of Cranbrook ward, will put forward a motion at a council meeting this week calling on the authority to back the… – Continue reading
Bangladesh central bank has summoned local HSBC officials over recent reports in global media alleging the bank’s involvement in helping clients to evade taxes. The multinational bank’s Dhaka officials have been asked to come to the Bangladesh Bank (BB) on Thursday. “Recent media reports claim that a lot of people… – Continue reading
FORMER Tanaiste Michael McDowell has described as “nonsense” suggestions that Ansbacher inquiry judge Declan Costello was compromised by holding an account with the bank involved in the tax evasion scandal. Mr Costello’s family issued a statement defending the now deceased judge after it was alleged he was conflicted in overseeing… – Continue reading
A US criminal investigation into how Swiss banks helped wealthy Americans hide their money has had an unexpected side effect: shaking out scores of tax cheats among the Swiss themselves. Secrecy laws in Switzerland, the world’s largest offshore financial centre with trillions in assets, have been under siege in recent… – Continue reading
Other bodies announce similar probes; bank agreed to pay $400 million to US he Attorney General’s Office will open an investigation into the Bank Leumi Group, it revealed Thursday, weeks after the bank agreed to pay $400 million to United States and New York authorities for helping American taxpayers hide… – Continue reading
(Reuters) – Credit Suisse said its offices in Milan were searched by Italian tax police last month, following media reports of an investigation into whether a Bermuda subsidiary of the bank helped wealthy Italians hide undeclared funds. The searches follow a series of investigations against Swiss banks, including Credit Suisse,… – Continue reading
The Attorney General will examine the civil and criminal implications of the bank’s conduct in helping US citizens evade US taxes. Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein is to examine the Bank Leumi (TASE: LUMI) tax evasion affair, in which the Israeli bank helped American customers evade US taxes. Weinstein is consulting… – Continue reading
Countries are competing to lower their tax rates to please the corporate giants, but the result is a massive collective loss of revenue. Only international coordination can wipe out the practice and defeat the negative influence of the Big Four accounting firms. Tax havens have long existed in the popular… – Continue reading
Medtronic Inc. took one step closer to becoming an Irish company when shareholders voted in favor of acquiring Dublin-based medical supply maker Covidien Ltd. Covidien shareholders similarly voted on the deal early today and also approved it. The acquisition now goes before the Irish High Court, which may take several… – Continue reading
Europe’s tax showdown could be headed straight to people’s wallets. With the new year, a change in fiscal rules in the European Union is increasing the tax on many purchases of digital content like e-books and smartphone applications. Under the new rules, first approved in 2008, the tax rate on… – Continue reading
Critics said the deal would allow Medtronic avoid taxes while providing preferential treatment to executives. The promise of 1,000 new Minnesota jobs was not enough to convince the state’s pension board to support a $48 billion corporate transaction that will move Medtronic’s legal headquarters overseas. A four-member subcommittee of the… – Continue reading
The courtroom victory of the only Swiss banker to beat the U.S. in a trial over offshore tax evasion may embolden other indicted financial workers to leave a legal limbo some have endured more than five years. Twenty-five offshore bankers, lawyers and advisers have yet to answer U.S. Justice Department… – Continue reading
Bank Leumi Le-Israel Ltd. (LUMI) agreed to pay $400 million and admit it helped American clients evade taxes for a decade, in a case showing that U.S. prosecutors and New York regulators are extending their probes of offshore tax evasion beyond Switzerland. The Justice Department filed a conspiracy charge today… – Continue reading
The disclosure of thousands of pages of confidential documents on Luxembourg tax deals was a “game changer” that led European Union regulators to expand their probe of such accords to all 28 nations in the bloc, Luxembourg Finance Minister Pierre Gramegna said. The EU’s expanded investigation “is not a surprise… – Continue reading
More leaked documents relating to tax avoidance schemes involving Luxembourg’s government under the leadership of Jean-Claude Juncker, now President of the European Union (EU) Commission, have intensified the political crisis surrounding the EU. It comes at a time of growing opposition to the pro-business EU and the vicious austerity cuts… – Continue reading
Dec 21 (Reuters) – Authorities in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia have bought a CD containing data about several thousand German clients of a Swiss bank, German newspaper Bild am Sonntag said on Sunday without citing its sources. The clients each have accounts containing up to 5 million euros… – Continue reading
A father and son who ran a tax-preparation business were convicted in Los Angeles of conspiring to help clients cheat the Internal Revenue Service by setting up undeclared offshore bank accounts. David Kalai, the founder and former chief executive officer of United Revenue Service, and his son Nadav, who was… – Continue reading
Burger King Chief Executive Officer Daniel Schwartz swears that the company’s plan to renounce its U.S. “citizenship” and become a Canadian corporation “is really not about taxes.” But a new report by my group, Americans for Tax Fairness, finds that it really is about taxes after all. The report reveals… – Continue reading
(Reuters) – Luxembourg acceded on Thursday to the demand of the European Commission to release data to further EU antitrust regulators’ investigation into whether it allowed multinationals to pay excessively low taxes. The European Commission launched investigations this year into whether U.S. retailer Amazon (AMZN.O) and a unit of Italian… – Continue reading
There has been a recent surge in anti-tax inversion legislation discouraging companies attempting to shift corporate subsidiaries or headquarters to low-tax or tax-free countries. The issue was subjected to a great deal of publicity in April 2014 during the failed hostile takeover by Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) for AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN) when Pfizer… – Continue reading
DBS Bank is scheduled to launch a U.S. dollar fixed deposit program for Taiwanese investors intrigued by the recent drop in the United States’ financial deficits, said Seraph Sun (孫可基), head of Consumer Banking at DBS Bank (Taiwan). According to Sun, DBS Bank deems 2015 a hopeful year for the… – Continue reading
* EU to examine tax arrangements across bloc * Several deals with multinationals already under scrutiny * Questions asked of new Commission President Juncker (Adds Luxembourg reaction, background) By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS, Dec 17 (Reuters) – European Union competition regulators have asked all 28 member countries for details of… – Continue reading
NEW DELHI: Bilateral investment treaties that the government will enter into from now on will have a provision preventing foreign investors to drag India to arbitration on any issues that have been settled by a judicial authority. Wiser from being dragged to arbitration in numerous cases, such as the Vodafone… – Continue reading
The European Union’s new antitrust chief said the EU is braced for a legal battle with governments embroiled in its probe of sweetheart tax deals for multinationals from Apple Inc. (AAPL:US) to Amazon.com Inc. Margrethe Vestager said the process needs to be legally watertight as officials investigate whether deals handed… – Continue reading
