Back in the eighties and nineties, the Wyly brothers ran, and owned huge stakes in, a weird bunch of public companies, including some craft stores, some software companies, and a reinsurer. These companies were good and made the Wyly brothers a lot of money. An odd biological fact is that… – Continue reading
HOLDER LEGACY AS TAX-CHEAT CATCHER. Attorney General Eric Holder, who on Thursday announced he’s stepping down, made some pretty huge contributions to tax land during his six years on the job. Continuing the work his predecessor started prosecuting Swiss bank UBS, Holder maintained the department’s laser focus on tax evasion, starting… – Continue reading
The Government of Canada has been moving ahead with its plans to solve the deficit by cutting services to Canadians and yet, there are billions of dollars in taxable assets illegally hidden by some Canadians in overseas tax havens. Overseas tax evasion is a serious problem requiring assertive action. Eight… – Continue reading
Thousands of Americans abroad are giving up their citizenship as the implementation of a complex new tax law causes banks to shut down accounts for US expatriates Angry Canadians are rare. But Patricia Moon qualifies. Until 2012, Moon was actually an American – albeit one who had lived in Canada… – Continue reading
Ottawa’s program that pays for tips to the Canada Revenue Agency about tax cheats has received more than a thousand calls since being set up earlier this year. In January, the federal government enacted the Offshore Tax Informant Program, which encourages citizens to become informants about Canadians trying to hide… – Continue reading
The Government of Canada has been moving ahead with its plans to solve the deficit by cutting services to Canadians and yet, there are billions of dollars in taxable assets illegally hidden by some Canadians in overseas tax havens. Overseas tax evasion is a serious problem requiring assertive action not… – Continue reading
After promising to flush out companies that stash their cash in offshore tax havens, the Harper government has lost its enthusiasm for ruffling corporate feathers. By: Carol Goar Star Columnist, Published on Tue Sep 23 2014 There has been scarcely a peep out of Ottawa since last winter’s promise to… – Continue reading
Nokia, Skype and Minecraft-maker Mojang have more in common than just the fact that they are among Microsoft’s biggest acquisition targets in recent years. They are all also based outside the U.S., and that’s no coincidence. As the debate over so-called inversions heats up and critics — from President Obama… – Continue reading
AstraZeneca shares are leading the losers on the FTSE 100 after the US Treasury department revealed that it forging new rules that will make it more difficult for companies to move their bases abroad to avoid tax. The AstraZeneca stock price has tumbled by over 5% to 4348.50p by midday while rival GlaxoSmithKline was hit by 1.25% at… – Continue reading
CAIRNS/AUSTRALIA: India may have scored a big win in its efforts to receive information on black money stashed away overseas as the G20 grouping of nations is set to endorse on Sunday a framework for automatic exchange of information on bank accounts, putting an end to global bank secrecy. A… – Continue reading
Lenders spent nine months poring over the books, sizing up management and even checking out the factory floor at China’s Ultrasonic before deciding in August to give the Frankfurt-listed shoemaker an unsecured credit facility of US$60m. The loan was unsecured, in keeping with regulations in China at the time it… – Continue reading
ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Thursday ruled out possibility of the recovery of billions of dollars stashed in Swiss banks any time soon. ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Thursday ruled out possibility of the recovery of billions of dollars stashed in Swiss banks any time soon. The minister… – Continue reading
Clients of UBS AG (UBSN), Switzerland’s largest bank, have led a five-fold surge in the number of Canadian residents reporting hidden offshore income over the past eight years. Almost 6,000 taxpayers came forward in the past 12 months as part of the Canada Revenue Agency’s voluntary disclosure program to report… – Continue reading
UBS AG, the world’s biggest manager of money for the rich, has become the test case for French President Francois Hollande’s tax-evasion crackdown. The Swiss bank is set to learn from a Paris appeals court on Sept. 22 if it must post a 1.1 billion-euro ($1.4 billion) bond to cover… – Continue reading
As Switzerland’s long-cherished banking secrecy practices evaporate, the institutions in the world’s largest offshore tax haven are dramatically rethinking their business models in a bid to survive. Already reeling from the painful process of making amends for allowing foreign nationals to hide assets from the taxman back home, the secretive… – Continue reading
BEIJING, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) — The Luxembourg branch of China’s largest lender, ICBC, has been appointed as a clearing bank for renminbi business in the European country, the Chinese central bank said on Tuesday. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) made the decision in accordance with a memorandum of understanding… – Continue reading
If the all-American fast food chain Burger King, with its thousands of restaurants in the United States, can claim to be a foreign company for tax purposes, our corporate tax system is in real trouble. The crisis of corporate inversions is now apparent even to those who aren’t connected to… – Continue reading
The OECD will today publish its first recommendations for a co-ordinated international approach to combat tax avoidance by multinational enterprises under the OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project. Meanwhile there is already evidence in Europe that the confluence of massive tax avoidance and increased concerns about privacy is… – 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/0/3fbed922-3d51-11e4-871d-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz3Eo63WbfR The British Virgin Islands has long attracted Chinese companies looking to… – Continue reading
Banks in the British Virgin Islands are making it more difficulty for new accounts to be opened after a rise in reports of suspicious transactions relating to the Caribbean tax haven. Difficulties in opening bank accounts are seen to have helped business, including an increase in new incorporations, in the… – Continue reading
ALTHOUGH Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa’s 2014 Fiscal Policy Review statement announced last week seeks to widen government’s revenue inflows, analysts contend that there is need to seriously curb illicit financial flows (IFFs) from Zimbabwe if the economy is to experience the anticipated growth. Illicit financial flows through tax evasion, bribery,… – Continue reading
The turning point for regulating the market dates back to 2001 for Turkish banking industry after a major banking crisis in Turkey. The remediation efforts of government authorities have been supported by private banks and Turkey has had a new code on banking ( Law No 5411) in 2005. The… – Continue reading
GENEVA: As Switzerland’s long-cherished banking secrecy practices evaporate, the institutions that helped create the world’s largest offshore tax haven are dramatically rethinking their business models in a bid to survive. Already reeling from the painful process of making amends for allowing foreign nationals to hide assets from the taxman back… – Continue reading
As Switzerland’s long-cherished banking secrecy practices evaporate, the institutions that helped create the world’s largest offshore tax haven are dramatically rethinking their business models in a bid to survive. Already reeling from the painful process of making amends for allowing foreign nationals to hide assets from the taxman back home,… – Continue reading
Financial institutions outside Switzerland may be tempted to think that the U.S. Department of Justice’s focus and pressure on Swiss banks in recent years leaves them in the clear. And, indeed, the DOJ has had great success in targeting these institutions far from U.S. shores. It has levied monetary penalties… – Continue reading
China’s Bank of Communications is expected to settle in Luxembourg before the end of the year, marking the sixth Chinese bank to do so. The Luxemburger Wort first reported the bank, the fifth largest in China, had eyed up Luxembourg in January this year. This was confirmed on Tuesday by… – Continue reading
Countries worldwide have cut their corporate tax rates in the past two decades. Germany lowered its top rate to 29.6% from 59.7% in 1993. Canada went from 44.3% to 26%, Ireland from 40% to 12.5%. The average top rate for 34 non-U.S. countries went from 36.9% in 1993 to 25.1%… – Continue reading
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., has introduced three pieces of legislation to close tax breaks that enable U.S. multinational corporations to use so-called “inversions” in which they merge with a foreign company and move their tax domicile abroad to a low-tax country to reduce corporate taxes. Corporate inversions are used by… – Continue reading
The offshore tax affairs of a company previously headed by the economics minister are to be re-examined by the finance department of canton Bern. The move comes after Swiss Public Television, SRF, published a memo written by the Federal Tax Authorities (FTA) which raised questions about the previous investigation. The… – Continue reading
Washington, DC—(ENEWSPF)—September 5, 2014. Joshua Vandyk, an investment advisor, was sentenced today to serve 30 months in prison for conspiring to launder monetary instruments, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced. Vandyk, a U.S. citizen, and Eric St-Cyr and Patrick Poulin, Canadian citizens, were indicted by a grand… – Continue reading
The tax authorities of the United Kingdom and Canada are to deepen cooperation to establish a stronger mutually beneficial relationship, senior officials from both Government have said. Canada’s Revenue Minister, Kerry-Lynne D. Findlay, met with David Gauke, the UK’s Financial Secretary to the Treasury, in London on September 8. Findlay… – Continue reading
BANGKOK, Sept 10 (Bernama) — Developing countries may be losing over US$160 billion annually due to corporate tax avoidance – money that could fund greater policy ambitions to get the global economy out of the doldrums and moving towards a more inclusive and sustainable future. Greater policy ambition in both… – Continue reading
This article was first published in the 2nd quarter 2014 edition of Personal Finance magazine. You might need a bank account in a foreign country for all sorts of reasons. As Gerrit Viljoen, financial planner at Ultima Financial Planners, says: “More and more South Africans have business interests and property… – Continue reading
Scandal Is an Embarrassment to Separatists Planning Independence Referendum BARCELONA— Jordi Pujol often said he discovered his mission for Catalonia while climbing a mountain as a boy and seeing the destruction wrought by the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. Decades later, as Catalonia’s long-serving leader, Mr. Pujol presided over… – Continue reading
UBS AG (UBSN) asked a Paris appeals court to overturn a $1.4 billion bail looming over the Swiss bank as France steps up a two-year-old tax evasion probe. The hearing dragged on for nearly three hours as the parties argued the case. The court said it would decide on the… – Continue reading
A retired businessman from Northern Ireland has made a 13.5 million euro (£10.8m) settlement with the tax man in the Republic – one of the largest ever. Anthony Cafferkey, from Lisnarick Road, Irvinestown, Co Fermanagh has been named and shamed on the latest defaulters’ list over his tax affairs. Listed… – Continue reading
A multi-count indictment was unsealed this morning in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, against six individual defendants: Robert Bandfield, a U.S. citizen; Andrew Godfrey, a citizen of Belize; Kelvin Leach, a citizen of the Bahamas; Rohn Knowles, a citizen of the Bahamas; Brian De Wit, a citizen of Canada;… – Continue reading
Medical device giant Medtronic Inc. leads all corporate inverters in the amount of offshore cash waiting to be tapped if their tax inversion deals are consummated. Medtronic is buying Covidien and moving to Dublin, and it has $13 billion of cash outside the United States, according to a report from the Financial Times,… – Continue reading
On Tuesday, the SEC and the Justice Department charged several companies claiming to be located on the same floor of an office building in Belize City with fraud and conspiracy. We may not have heard the last from Cynk Technology. On Tuesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department… – Continue reading
Principal source of information for Israel Tax Authority probe comes from someone who obtained information from foreign tax authorities and handed it over to Israeli officials. A gag order is expected to be lifted in the next few days on a major investigation of tax evasion by scores of Israelis… – Continue reading
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is wary of banks invoking guarantees on foreign swap deals, and is taking steps to scrutinize such activity. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is wary of US banks shifting their trading activities offshore and has urged other regulators to scrutinize banks involved in… – Continue reading
MONTREAL – The disclosure by Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. that it is under audit by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service is raising further doubts among tax specialists about the future of the Quebec-based drug company’s tax strategies. Valeant estimates it has achieved US$2.5-billion in tax and other “corporate structure” savings… – Continue reading
US companies can end up sitting on vast piles of untappable cash, held overseas for tax purposes. Success for the iPhone 6 would make things worse If, as expected, the launch of the new iPhone and Apple’s iWatch health monitor leads to record sales, more money than ever will pour… – Continue reading
Antony Ting describes it as “like finding treasure”. It was 18 months ago when the powerful US congressional committee blew the lid on Apple’s aggressive corporate tax structure, which allowed it to funnel $US44 billion dollars out of the countrythrough a network of tax haven subsidiaries. Dr Ting, a senior… – Continue reading
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California military contractor who failed to report millions earned from providing services in Iraq has been sentenced to four years in federal prison. Prosecutors say Nadim Saifan Jr. of Huntington Beach was sentenced Friday. He pleaded guilty in May to attempted tax evasion…. – 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. Savers and investors who have kept assets offshore should make use of disclosure facilities to settle with the… – Continue reading
(India and Switzerland are…) NEW DELHI: India and Switzerland are finding it difficult to break a deadlock over sharing information on secret bank accounts held in the European nation but both sides are close to finalising the first accord on a bilateral advance pricing agreement that will allow taxpayers to… – Continue reading
Such bonds have advantages for expats who are moving from a low-tax to a high-tax environment, explains Charlotte Beugge Interest rates on savings accounts are at such low levels that many expats will be looking for an alternative home for their money. Currently, the best rate expat savers can get… – Continue reading
The constant battle raging between clever lawyers and HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has led to the goal posts moving on a tax amnesty offer. After alleged abuses of the Employee Benefit Trust settlement arrangement (EBT) the scheme will be closed early, denying taxpayers the chance to settle their affair… – Continue reading
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A tough new ad from Democratic Sen. Al Franken accuses his Republican opponent’s business of avoiding taxes by headquartering overseas. But Republican Mike McFadden calls the ad “ridiculous” and “full of lies.” The ad marks a new Franken campaign strategy: directly attack McFadden for his business dealings…. – Continue reading
