On 9 May 2016, Singapore passed the Income Tax (Amendment No. 2) Act 2016 (Amendment Act). This is a first step towards the implementation of the Common Reporting Standards (CRS) developed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) into Singapore law. The legislation sets up the legal framework… – Continue reading
Multinationals suspected of routing Australian profits via Singapore will be outed to tax authorities, with the low-tax nation this week signing up to the global plan to fight tax evasion. Companies including big miners BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto as well as technology giants Apple and Google, have admitted using… – Continue reading
Under the new tax framework, Singapore will implement minimum standards aimed at preventing “aggressive tax planning” by multinationals. Locally headquartered multinationals will soon have to file reports broken down by country as well as income and taxes to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS). In a statement on Thursday… – Continue reading
Hundreds of policymakers, business executives, and senior tax officials met at the OECD International Tax Conference to discuss the recommendations proposed under the base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) project and their impact on trade and investment. The conference, which was held in Washington DC on June 6-7, 2016, was… – Continue reading
CHENNAI: The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax, is what Albert Einstein had famously said. Amid the long list of taxation categories, to assimilate what is taxable and what is exempted is hard. Even harder is to pay them, of course. As the June 15… – Continue reading
Pending before the United States Senate are a number of tax treaties. Seven of these are bilateral treaties between the U.S. and a foreign country, in this case Chile, Hungary, Japan, Luxembourg, Poland, Spain, and Switzerland. ATR urges all Senators to support these routine, yet important treaties that protect against… – Continue reading
Asia Pacific The January – March edition of tax highlights for the Asia Pacific region highlights industry developments from Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia and Singapore including: Australia’s new tax system for Managed Investment Trusts The final stage of China’s B2V reform to be rolled out from… – Continue reading
In an ongoing effort to increase transparency by multinational enterprises (MNEs), India joined Canada, Iceland, Israel, New Zealand and the People’s Republic of China in becoming the 39thsignatory to the OECD ‘s Multilateral Competent Authority agreement for the automatic exchange of Country-by-Country reports (CbC MCAA). The Country-by-Country Reporting Agreement was… – Continue reading
The recent EMEA Conference of Alliott Group, one of the world’s most established international associations of independent accounting and law firms, brought together tax professionals from 28 countries across the world to discuss Base Erosion & Profit Shifting (BEPS), a project led by the OECD and G20 whose Action Plan… – Continue reading
The Delhi HC has delivered path-breaking and bold verdicts, quashing proceedings initiated by CBDT and CBEC administrative guidance for assessments and subsequent denial of benefits. A question tax professionals are often asked is: Has the government done enough to address the situation on tax? Several negative catchphrases had peppered headlines… – Continue reading
In its fight against black money stashed abroad, India has signed a protocol with European Union member nation Slovenia to make changes to the Double Taxation Avoidance Convention between the two countries, an official statement said in New Delhi on Thursday. The protocol, for avoidance of double taxation and preventing… – Continue reading
NEW DELHI: Now that loopholes in the tax treaty with Mauritius have been plugged, the Indian government is gearing up to apply the same fix to its accord with Cyprus. Talks to amend the double taxation avoidance treaty are at an advanced stage and the two sides will soon exchange… – Continue reading
The Philippines Department of Finance has tabled before the Congress a slew of amendments aimed at further strengthening the country’s anti-money laundering and bank secrecy laws. The amendments to Anti-Money Laundering Act 2001 (AMLA) are aimed at improving the Anti Money Laundering Council’s (AMLC’s) ability to safeguard the financial system… – Continue reading
East African Community member states have failed to reach a deal on a common tax rate as the bloc’s smaller economies worry about significant revenue losses. The failure to harmonise value added tax, income tax and excise tax rates has left the regional bloc deliberating on how to harmonise legislation… – Continue reading
According to reports, the International Monetary Fund is aiding the Ukrainian government in its efforts to fix the country’s weak anti-money-laundering regulations. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is aiding the Ukrainian government in its efforts to fix the country’s weak anti-money-laundering regulations, the IMF said in a… – Continue reading
In August 2015, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published the first edition of the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) Implementation Handbook to provide practical guidance to assist government officials in implementing the Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information in Tax Matters (AEOI). The AEOI and CRS… – Continue reading
Hot off the heels of the Panamanian documents leak, 5 EU countries announced last month that they have agreed to exchange beneficial ownership information. France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK will now automatically exchange information on the ultimate beneficial owners of companies and trusts. These 5 EU countries are… – Continue reading
Governor Jack Markell will extend Delaware’s hospitality (home to more corporations than people) to Blockchain firms. Speaking at the Bitcoin community’s event in New York, Consensus 2016, Democratic Governor Jack Markell announced an initiative by the U.S State of Delaware to embrace the blockchain industry. His plan is to provide… – Continue reading
In amove towards a more progressive taxation policy the revenue officials have set an aggressive target of resolving about 100 transfer pricing issues by signing advance pricing agreements (APAs) with multinationals this fiscal, people close to the development said. The government, through the Central Bureau of Direct Taxes (CBDT), had… – Continue reading
The government should immediately withdraw key tax avoidance provisions from the income tax law and investigate sources of foreign remittances under section 111(4) of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 and other blanket amnesty/immunity clauses in the tax laws through Statutory Regulatory Orders (SROs). A tax lawyer Waheed Shahzad Butt told… – Continue reading
Despite best intentions of the government, there have been little or no takers for India-based fund managers In 2015, the Indian government took a commendable step by introducing a new provision in the Income-tax Act, 1961 (i.e. section 9A), to promote India as a fund manager jurisdiction, and to encourage… – Continue reading
The European Commission has set out a proposed action plan to modernise the EU VAT system in a move which should give more freedom to the member states The action plan will include new rules such as the implementation of key principles for a future single European VAT system, short… – Continue reading
The Canada Revenue Agency (“CRA”) released its Annual Report to Parliament (“Report”), outlining the CRA’s performance and key statistics for 2014-2015. This article highlights some of the measures that the CRA has undertaken to combat non-compliance. During 2014-2015, the CRA assessed over $1.7 billion in additional taxes owing and identified… – Continue reading
Kenya has received global recognition from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), following the appointment of James Karanja, a career Kenyan tax administrator to lead the recently established Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB) Secretariat. TIWB is a global scope initiative, that was launched mid last year at the… – Continue reading
The proposed Article 26 (exchange of information) of the convention on Avoidance of Double Taxation, being renegotiated between Pakistan and Switzerland, would bound the Swiss tax authorities to exchange all requested information, including confidential bank account information of Pakistanis maintaining Swiss accounts. Sources told Business Recorder here on Tuesday that… – Continue reading
In March 2010, the FATCA was enacted in the United States (“US“) for the purpose of preventing the non-compliance of US persons with US taxation laws through the participation and cooperation of foreign governments and financial institutions. FATCA Implementation in Malaysia On 30 June 2014, Malaysia reached an agreement in… – Continue reading
The Australian government has announced that it will back a legislative solution to tax concerns surrounding bitcoin as part of a broad policy statement on financial technology. Under current tax guidance in the country, bitcoin is considered a form of barter rather than a form of money. Australian businesses must… – Continue reading
NEW DELHI: India has substantially liberalised the tax framework to extend exemption to fund houses owned by a single institutional entity, a move aimed at attracting offshore fund management activity into the country. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the apex direct taxes body, has announced rules to implement… – Continue reading
Thomson Reuters Checkpoint has just released a special report, European Commission Presents Anti-Tax Avoidance (ATA) Package, summarizing the ATA Package to help businesses plan for the latest developments in advance of implementation. On January 28, 2016, the European Commission presented its Communication on the Anti-Tax Avoidance Package. The goal of… – Continue reading
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has expressed deep approval for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) plan to allow all countries to participate in its Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) plan. BEPS is an international policy proposal designed to counteract the negative effects of multinational companies’… – Continue reading
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) welcomes the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) plan to allow all countries to participate on an equal footing with OECD and G20 countries in the implementation of the OECD/G20 Base Erosion Profit Shifting (BEPS) plan. The framework announced by the OECD early… – Continue reading
With the adoption of the BEPS package, OECD and G20 countries laid the foundations of a modern international tax framework under which profits would be taxed where economic activity and value creation occurs. It is now time to focus on implementation of the recommended changes in a consistent and coherent… – Continue reading
The pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi – the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) – housed in the Gujarat International Finance Tec City – has received a boost in the Union Budget 2016/17. The long pending tax issue has been decided with 9 per cent minimum alternate tax (MAT),… – Continue reading
ISLAMABAD: Businessmen and tax experts have criticised the government for its failure to draft framework for jurisdictions of federal and provincial tax authorities. The government has not yet drafted a framework that clearly outlines the federal and provincial tax authorities’ jurisdictions in taxing the services sector. The absence of framework… – Continue reading
