Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. is marketing the largest sale of offshore yuan bonds as China pushes for the wider use of its currency as an alternative to the dollar in business and finance. The nation’s biggest lender by market value is offering about 12 billion yuan ($1.95… – Continue reading
Global banks may feel that purging their correspondent banking relationships will help them de-risk, but they should beware the unintended consequences. The Central Bank of Seychelles’ rescue of BMI Offshore Bank in November is one of the clearest examples of the impact global banks are having on smaller financial institutions… – Continue reading
The medical device manufacturer Medtronic has launched a USD17bn bond to finance part of its USD43bn corporate inversion acquisition of Ireland-based Covidien, in replacement of the cash held by its foreign subsidiaries that it was prevented from using following the United States Department of Treasury’s announcement of anti-inversion measures in… – Continue reading
Corruption is feared to be worsening in China, Turkey and other fast-growing economies, an anti-graft watchdog warned Wednesday, also urging the world’s banking centres to help combat sleaze and money-laundering. Transparency International released its annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), which ranked Sudan, North Korea and Somalia as the worst offenders… – Continue reading
Argentina and Belgium have separately accused HSBC bank’s Geneva branch of setting up a network of offshore accounts to help their citizens avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes. The Belgian charges were filed Monday and the Argentine charges were announced Friday. HSBC, formerly known as Hong Kong & Shanghai… – Continue reading
“Nothing abnormal about the way Starbucks is run” The new chief executive of Starbucks has admitted that the coffee shop chain is unlikely to pay any UK corporation tax for another three years. Speaking to the Evening Standard, Mark Fox said the tax wouldn’t be applicable until the company turned… – Continue reading
A Swiss banker accused of helping U.S. clients cheat on their taxes wants a judge to grant him bail without his having to appear first in a New York courtroom. Stefan Buck, who was Bank Frey & Co.’s head of private banking in Switzerland and an executive board member, was… – Continue reading
SHANGHAI: China will toughen its stance on tax avoidance by foreign firms to prevent tax payments being directed overseas, the official Xinhua news agency has said, after Beijing levied $140 million in back taxes from U.S. firm Microsoft Corp last week. Beijing will closely monitor the profit levels of foreign… – Continue reading
Taxation authorities in China said they would tighten their monitoring of foreign companies in order to prevent them from avoiding tax using numerous schemes. The official Xinhua news agency, citing tax officials in the country, reported that China would comprehensively monitor profit levels of foreign companies to make sure that… – Continue reading
AMP chief executive Craig Meller has launched an aggressive defence of the company’s international taxation arrangements after the financial services giant was named among some of the world’s biggest multinationals that allegedly channelled funds through Luxembourg to minimise their tax bills. The recent meeting of the G20 leaders in Brisbane… – Continue reading
The Chinese government has levied a $140 million fine on Microsoft Corp for cross-border tax evasion, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing an article by the Xinhua News Agency which referred to a company identified only as “M.” Chinese subsidiaries of Microsoft will also pay taxes amounting to 100 million yuan ($16.28… – Continue reading
PUBLIC Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman John McGuinness has confirmed that the Revenue Commissioners will this week be quizzed over the explosive Ansbacher dossier. Representatives from the tax authority will be questioned by TDs over an investigation carried out into allegations of widespread tax evasion by a number of former senior… – Continue reading
Offshore accounts have made headlines recently, with 51 global jurisdictions agreeing to automatically share and exchange details of tax data. Included in this agreement is information on offshore accounts and their operational procedures. The decision brings new attention to overseas financial planning, and how top companies use offshore accounts to… – Continue reading
Scottish Widows is considering the sale of offshore investment and tax planning business Clerical Medical International, the Financial Times reports. The Isle of Man-based business, acquired by Lloyds Banking Group as part of the HBOS deal in 2008, currently manages around £5bn in policyholder funds. The Isle of Man-based business,… – 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/0/0092eb7c-788d-11e4-a33c-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz3KooWgw9y Multinational companies are braced for a tax crackdown after George Osborne vowed to use… – Continue reading
Top cable firm, lawmaker allegedly stashed funds in Swiss accounts Argentina’s top cable-TV operator, a former professional soccer player and a lawmaker are among the holders of some 4,000 secret Swiss bank accounts used to evade taxes, the Argentine tax agency said on Friday. The agency’s revelation came a day… – Continue reading
The lead article in The Sunday Times Business section today (authored by Simon Duke and David Smith) says that Britain is at the forefront of a crackdown on corporate tax avoidance – a blitz on tax avoidance by multinationals. The UK Treasury is planning a consultation on forcing multinationals like… – Continue reading
Lloyds Banking Group’s insurance arm Scottish Widows has put its offshore investment and tax planning business up for sale in the latest sign that dealmaking in the sector is heating up. Several parties have expressed an interest in the Isle of Man-based operation, which manages about £5bn of policyholders’ funds,… – Continue reading
Even though it was the French tax office that handed over encrypted information to AFIP head Ricardo Echegaray, the source of the revelations was former HSBC employee and whistleblower Hervé Falciani, a man responsible for giving the details of up to 130,000 Swiss bank accounts he suspected were linked with… – Continue reading
Pascal Soriot has said that controversial inversion tax deals, branded ‘unpatriotic’ by President Obama, are still taking place despite attempts to curb the practice AstraZeneca’s chief has said inversion deals used by US companies to escape high taxes at home are not over despite a major clampdown on the practice…. – Continue reading
New Delhi, India is moving towards a tax-friendly regime to erase the “bad name” it has earned over the years, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday. “Our tax system has to be friendly with tax payers and that is what we are trying to do step by step,” he… – Continue reading
NEW DELHI: Tax authorities are making a fresh bid to engage with taxpayers as they attempt to present a friendly face and wipe out the ghosts of controversial tax disputes of the past, which attracted global criticism. Reaching out to the taxpayer, both small and large, the department has lined… – Continue reading
Even as Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said a heavy tax regime was responsible for black money, his ministerial colleague M Venkaiah Naidu told parliament amidst uproar that BJP had never promised to bring back black money stashed aboard in first 100 days of power. Reading BJP manifesto, Naidu,… – Continue reading
PwC’s UK head of tax, Kevin Nicholson, who previously headed the firm’s entrepreneurs and private clients division, has been called to appear before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) As part of a larger inquiry into tax avoidance and related to the recent Lux-leaks scandal, where PwC Luxembourg was shown to… – Continue reading
The revelations that global and multinational businesses have been brokering “secret” tax deals with Luxembourg to avoid paying taxes in their home countries, may be the first time an entire country has been implicated in tax avoidance collusion. A cache of leaked agreements uncovered by the International Consortium of Investigative… – Continue reading
The fund will hit the markets by the middle of next year and invest in residential projects like the last fund Having raised a $250-million (Rs 1,500 crore) offshore fund in July this year, real estate fund manager HDFC Property Fund is now gearing up to launch a $500-million (Rs… – Continue reading
With the Opposition targeting the government on the black money issue, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday that the identity of 427 foreign account holders has been established, of which 250 have admitted to having these accounts. Replying to a debate on the issue, Jaitley said… – Continue reading
Bonds of Greenko Group Plc fell to a record after India’s central bank banned the method used by the hydro and wind power company to raise funds from overseas. The company used an offshore entity to sell U.S. dollar notes at a spread higher than the limit set by the… – Continue reading
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), once again finds itself deep in controversy and this time, on foreign shores. The company has been hit with a $140 million in taxes and interests presented by the Chinese government. This came to light in a rare incident of cross-border tax invasion. An article was published by… – Continue reading
* Sistema’s Q3 net income down 71.5 percent * CEO says reporting period “most challenging” (Recasts, adds detail, CEO quotes) Nov 27 (Reuters) – Russian conglomerate Sistema is reviewing its costs, portfolio of investments and future plans, it said on Thursday, after a drop in profits and a “challenging” year… – Continue reading
UPDATE 1-Argentina charges HSBC with aiding tax evasion via Swiss accounts AFIP said it received the information on the secret accounts from France, which last week placed HSBC’s Swiss private banking arm under formal investigation for possibly aiding tax evasion. “We denounce the existence of an illegal platform created by… – Continue reading
BUENOS AIRES — Argentina’s tax agency accused the HSBC bank on Thursday of helping more than 4,000 Argentines evade taxes by placing their money in secret Swiss accounts. The head of country’s AFIP tax agency, Ricardo Echegaray, said Argentine citizens had evaded about $3 billion in taxes that were handled… – Continue reading
Hal Hicks cleared his throat and addressed a roomful of peers in a midtown Manhattan auditorium. The topic: the tax-avoidance technique called inversion, in which a U.S. company claims a foreign legal address. Waving his hands back and forth as if tracing a pendulum’s swing, Hicks explained how four government… – Continue reading
Legal disputes, lack of an ecosystem for smartphones and personnel availability are challenges As speculation swirls that Micromax, HTC and Chinese mobile handset manufacturer Xiaomi are eyeing the idle Nokia plant at Sriperumbudur near Chennai, experts say buyers will have to negotiate legal disputes, the lack of a smartphone supply… – Continue reading
Public accounts committee will demand intricate details from Kevin Nicholson about tax avoiding schemes in Grand Duchy One of Britain’s top tax advisers at PricewaterhouseCoopers has been summoned to give evidence before MPs in the wake of revelations about controversial tax deals for PwC clients in Luxembourg. Kevin Nicholson, PwC… – Continue reading
Bloomberg Beijing CHINA was expanding efforts to rein in what authorities said was tax evasion by foreign companies, with Microsoft being required to pay more than $150 million (R1.61 billion), an official familiar with the matter said yesterday. The payments – including 840 million yuan (R1.5bn) in back taxes, interest… – Continue reading
Bank Leumi Le Israel (LUMI) BM is close to a $400 million settlement of federal and state investigations into whether it helped Americans evade taxes, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Under the proposed accord, Bank Leumi would pay about $270 million to the Justice Department and… – Continue reading
WASHINGTON–U. S. authorities on Wednesday approved Medtronic Inc.’s$43 billion merger with fellow medical device maker Covidien PLC after requiring the spinoff of a drug-coated catheter business. The Federal Trade Commission required Minneapolis-based Medtronic to sell off Ireland-based Covidien’s catheter business before completing the acquisition. That $30 million sale, to Colorado-based… – Continue reading
Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) — Bank Leumi Le Israel BM is close to a $400 million settlement of federal and state investigations into whether it helped Americans evade taxes, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Under the proposed accord, Bank Leumi would pay about $270 million to the… – Continue reading
New Delhi: Industry body Ficci has welcomed Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi asking the Income Tax Department to not file an appeal against the Bombay High Court judgment in the transfer pricing case of Vodafone. “FICCI welcomes the decision of the government not to appeal against the judgment relating to the… – Continue reading
LABUAN: Former DAP Chairman here Lau Seng Kiat has questioned the Government’s rationale for parking billions of ringgit in 1MDB funds in distant Cayman Islands instead of the Labuan Financial and Business (ILFB) centre. Lau was referring to on-going controversies relating to the investment prudence of 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB)… – Continue reading
HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) will pay $12.5 million to settle claims that its Swiss private-banking unit solicited U.S. investors without being registered. HSBC Private Bank Suisse SA improperly amassed as many as 368 U.S. client accounts after starting to provide cross-border services more than 10 years ago, the SEC said… – Continue reading
A deal between Stryker Corp. (SYK) and Smith & Nephew Plc (SN/) makes as much sense now as it did six months ago. It just might be tougher to pull off. Stryker is considering structuring the takeover as a tax inversion, allowing the Kalamazoo, Michigan-based company to move its legal… – Continue reading
Martin Lock was formerly the top withholding-tax specialist at the Tax Office, a role that encompassed oversight of profit shifting by multinationals. He is one of many former officers who have voiced their concerns to Fairfax Media about the challenge of arresting the slide in tax receipts from multinational companies… – Continue reading
The central bank resumed its foreign-exchange support through selling the US dollar to the commercial banks after nearly two years and a half to keep the market stable, officials said. As part of the move, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) sold US$45 million at market rate to five commercial banks directly… – Continue reading
RBC Wealth Management has announced plans to discontinue its private wealth management business in the Caribbean. The strategy to “realign certain businesses within [its] international operations” was presented to staff in an internal memorandum last Thursday. It is not clear whether the business will be closed or sold. Paul French,… – Continue reading
The Future of the Department of Justice’s High Visibility Offshore Tax Evasion Initiative. On August 29, 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) Tax Division announced the Program for Non-Prosecution Agreements and Non-Target Letters for Swiss Banks (the “Program”). The announcement of this unprecedented program was the culmination of the… – Continue reading
Arlette Ricci accused of hiding money from France’s tax authorities in test case related to the HSBC tax-avoidance scandal Arlette Ricci’s name is on a list handed over by an HSBC Private Bank employee of French citizens alleged to have hidden cash in offshore accounts. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images The… – Continue reading
(Reuters) – China has levied about $140 million in back taxes from Microsoft Corp in the first major case concerning cross-border tax evasion in the country, as regulators ramp up pressure on U.S. corporations doing business there. According to an article published by China’s Xinhua official news agency on Sunday,… – Continue reading
When is a Chinese company not Chinese? When it’s a complex web of offshore vehicles rooted in anonymous tax havens. That description includes some of the People’s Republic’s most successful and innovative companies. It will make the country’s apparent new push on tax evasion hard to enforce. Authorities have extracted… – Continue reading
