Category: Jurisdiction

Canadians File Suit To Block FATCA And Prohibit Handover Of U.S. Names To IRS

A lawsuit has been filed by several Canadian citizens against the Canadian Attorney General in Federal Court in Canada. The legal claim challenges the constitutionality of the agreement the Canadian government struck with the United States. The controversial deal between nations was inked under FATCA—the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act…. – Continue reading

IRS Updates FATCA Withholding Agreements for Foreign Partnerships and Trusts

The Internal Revenue Service has updated the Withholding Foreign Partnership and Withholding Foreign Trust agreements as part of the process of implementing the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA. FATCA, which was included as part of the HIRE Act of 2010, requires foreign financial institutions to report on the… – Continue reading

Tax Evasion: More and More Voluntary Declarations in NRW

Clandestine accounts in Switzerland are clearly becoming too hot for many people. In the first half of 2014 in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), three times as many voluntary declarations of an incomplete tax return relating to Switzerland are reported to have been received than in the same period of the previous… – Continue reading

India to Switzerland: Join group on illegal money information sharing

New Delhi: To address the problem of illegal money stashed abroad, India has asked Switzerland to join a ‘early adopter group’ mandating an automatic exchange of information amongst the countries involved in the group, Parliament was informed on Tuesday. “The finance minister has written a letter to the Swiss finance… – Continue reading

SDN Threatens Profits at Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO); Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) Under Fire for Tax Evasion

NEW YORK – According to industry insiders there is a battle waging over Software-Defined Networking (SDN) that is a way to build corporate networks without the networking gear built by companies such as Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) and Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR). The battle pits network equipment manufacturers against a string of companies… – Continue reading

Gibraltar must prepare for FATCA or risk facing consequences

Gibraltar’s financial community must immediately prepare itself for FATCA or it risks getting caught up in the legislation’s strict international net, says an authority from the jurisdiction. Helvetic, a fund adminstrator based in the British overseas territory, says many financial institutions in the area are underestimating the compliance costs of… – Continue reading

Cut the corporate tax rate to 20%

India should cut its tax rate on corporate profits from a statutory rate of almost 33% to 20%, while simultaneously ending all exemptions in a phased manner. Indian corporate tax rates are relatively very high, with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) statutory average, including surtaxes and sub-federal… – Continue reading

Black money: India gets 24,000 pieces of secret foreign data

New Delhi: In its effort to unearth black money stashed away abroad, India has received data on over 24,000 instances of alleged tax evasion and dubious funds, which has been detected in foreign shores in the last financial year. These cases are now under investigation by the taxman even as… – Continue reading

UK Reduces Scope Of New Property Gains Tax

The British Property Federation (BPF) and the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) have welcomed an announcement from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) that institutional investors and companies with diverse ownership will be excluded from plans for a new capital gains tax (CGT) on UK properties sold by non-residents. The charge… – Continue reading

The offshore world: Past, present and future?

The reputation of many jurisdictions, or so called ‘tax havens’, has been attacked by other nations, most which fail to apply the same policies that they advocate for others. Over the last two decades, International Financial Centers (IFCs) have made vast changes to their laws and their enforcement, aiming to… – Continue reading

Africans call on rich nations to crack down on money laundering in new drive against illicit flows

WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The world’s richest nations must toughen their laws against money laundering, tax havens and tax evasion if a global drive against corruption and illicit finance is to deliver results, senior African diplomats said on Thursday. “There are two sides to this coin. If there were… – Continue reading

Reduce Your Tax Burden Through Property Investment in Mauritius

PORT-LOUIS, Mauritius, August 6, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — Living on a paradise island has always been your dream? Don’t look any further. Mauritius is the right destination. Located in the pristine turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean, Mauritius is a small tropical island, only 12 hours of flight from Paris. Since… – Continue reading

Real estate taxes soar along with home prices

One side effect of soaring home prices: Real estate taxes are soaring too. The government provides many incentives to homeownership, including the mortgage-interest deduction and capital gains exclusion. But the interest deduction is generally limited to interest on $1.1 million in mortgage debt. And the capital gains exclusion is limited… – Continue reading

HMRC & the truth about tax planning

>PRWEB.COM NewswireLONDON, UK (PRWEB UK) 7 August 2014 As reported on July 9th in an article by money.aol.co.uk, a new wave of celebrities have made HMRC’s tax-avoidance hit-list, joining past high-profile victims such as Jimmy Carr, who famously succumb to the taxman’s eagle-eyed scrutiny and merciless demand for recompense. Some 33,000 people… – Continue reading

Tax dodgers urged to confess

Australians who have dodged tax outside Australia have less than five months to voluntarily disclose or face going to jail, a law firm warned. Mills Oakley Lawyers said evaders can voluntarily disclose tax evaded through false deductions and offshore undeclared income through the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) initiative Project DO… – Continue reading

Fattah Jr. released on bail following U.S. indictment on theft, fraud and tax-evasion charges

The son of a congressman, who could face time in prison following his federal indictment on theft and tax-fraud charges, was released on bail Tuesday afternoon. Chaka Fattah Jr., 31, is accused of everything from tax fraud to stealing from the Philadelphia School District as part of the wide-ranging indictment… – Continue reading

Romanian fashion designer called for questioning, prosecuted for tax evasion, money laundry

Romanian fashion designer Adina Buzatu was recently prosecuted for tax evasion and money laundry, in a file here the prejudice exceeds some EUR 22.4 million. She was recently placed under accusation by the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT), according to Digi24. Buzatu is one of the 20… – Continue reading

Profit shifting ‘just a part’ of Africa tax loss

MULTINATIONAL companies shifting their profits from Africa to low-tax jurisdictions are only partly responsible for the erosion of the continent’s tax revenue bases. The African Tax Administration Forum (Ataf) believes some countries have signed away their tax revenue because of weak domestic policies, and ill-conceived tax incentives and mining contracts…. – Continue reading

Germany Brings FATCA Law Into Force

Germany’s Ministry of Finance announced that a law enabling the implementation of the United States’ Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) has come into force. The ministry said that the FATCA-USA Implementation Regulation, known in German as FATCA-USA-Umsetzungsverordnung or FATCA-USA-UmsV, entered into force on July 23, 2014. Germany signed the… – Continue reading

How REIT Spinoffs Will Further Erode the Corporate Tax Base

While Congress has been obsessing about tax inversions, it turns out another—potentially more important–tax avoidance technique is getting increased attention from the business community: Spinning off tangible assets into Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). If these deals become widespread, they’d be another nail in the coffin of the corporate income… – Continue reading

Campaign aims to snare tax dodgers

Tax dodgers are being warned that authorities will begin a crackdown later this month. An anti-tax avoidance campaign will be launched in August and announced in state-run newspapers in a bid to increase the Ministry of Finance’s revenue generation by 20 percent for the 2014-15 fiscal year, said Internal Revenue… – Continue reading