In the light of the recent revelations about Luxembourg tax avoidance schemes for multinational corporations, a quarter of the European Parliament on Wednesday (14 January) backed the Greens’ proposal to set up a full inquiry committee on tax evasion and dumping. Managing to get the required support of 188 MEPs… – Continue reading
The Department of Finance is understood to be “open-minded” over what rate should be applied to its proposed ‘knowledge box’ tax regime for patents and intellectual property assets developed here. The department yesterday formally launched its planned consultation process for the programme, which was announced in October’s Budget. There has… – Continue reading
The Government has unveiled a three-month public consultation on the proposed Knowledge Development Box, with submissions invited from businesses and the wider public. The proposed scheme, also known as a patent box, was announced in the Budget and is due to come into force next year. It will provide for… – Continue reading
Ireland: The Department of Finance will publish a consultation document Wednesday on the proposed ‘knowledge box’ patent tax regime that will be enacted in replacement of the Double Dutch tax avoidance scheme. Late last year Department officials hinted that a 5% rate was under discussion to match the Dutch rate…. – Continue reading
On October 14 2014, Ireland’s Minister for Finance (the Minister) announced changes to Ireland’s corporate residence rules. Following much speculation, the Minister confirmed that Ireland would change its rules to restrict the ability of Irish incorporated companies to be treated as non-Irish resident. Under existing Irish law, an Irish incorporated… – Continue reading
“The European Strategic Investment Plan is not the silver bullet. But if anyone has ideas to overcome the economic crisis with one stroke, stand up please,” said European Council President Donald Tusk in the debate on the results of the December European Council, which also covered tax avoidance and —… – Continue reading
Switzerland’s Financial Centre Reforms Are A Work In Progress by Andreas Keiser, swissinfo.ch In the last few months Switzerland has made progress in making its financial centre internationally compliant. Key areas are the automatic exchange of information, enhanced administrative assistance with other countries, and the reduction of foreign untaxed assets…. – Continue reading
Within the framework of the BEPS (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) action plan, adopted in July 2013, on last September 16, the OECD published its first recommendations in the form of reports on 7 of the 15 points of the action plan: Address the tax challenges of the digital economy… – Continue reading
Luxembourg’s fund management industry has responded to proposals put forward by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on preventing treaty abuse, with a particular focus on the treatment of collective investment vehicles (CIVs). The response, from the Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry (ALFI), concerns proposals put forward… – Continue reading
Already on the radar of governments and regulatory bodies around the world, recent developments with respect to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Action Plan are raising further the profile of oil and gas companies globally with both tax authorities and the… – Continue reading
India has pushed for fast implementation of the automatic exchange of information that would help to trace transactions of money illegally stashed abroad. The issue was raised by minister of state for finance Jayant Sinha at the meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors. “The minister advocated for… – Continue reading
ISTANBUL: Committing to resist protectionism, the G20 nations have pledged to improve business environment to promote growth and strengthen transparency to prevent cross border tax evasion. The G20 Ministers also expressed concern over terrorist activities and called upon the member nations to expeditiously comply with international norms concerning exchange of… – Continue reading
ISTANBUL: Committing to resist protectionism, the G20 nations have pledged to improve business environment to promote growth and strengthen transparency to prevent cross border tax evasion. The G20 Ministers also expressed concern over terrorist activities and called upon the member nations to expeditiously comply with international norms concerning exchange of… – Continue reading
(ATHENS) – Greece’s new anti-corruption tsar Panagiotis Nikoloudis has been tasked with recovering 2.5 billion euros ($2.8 billion) for the debt-strapped government’s coffers through a ruthless crackdown on tax evasion. The former Supreme Court deputy prosecutor and Greece’s first ever anti-corruption minister told AFP he was itching to tackle the… – Continue reading
Istanbul: Minister of State for Finance Shri Jayant Sinha attended the G-20 Meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Istanbul, Turkey on 9th and 10th February ,2015. It was the First Finance Ministers’ Meeting under the Turkish Presidency. During his interventions in different Sessions, Shri Jayant Sinha, MoS… – Continue reading
Regulators have updated guidelines regarding a little-known area of tax accounting that has become a political hot potato in recent years. Transfer pricing, as the process is called, refers to the price paid by one unit of a company to another for goods, services, intellectual property or financial transactions such… – Continue reading
British Members of Parliament (MPs) have questioned the Government’s unilateral decision to push for the introduction of a Diverted Profits Tax (DPT) ahead of the completion of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD’s) work on base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS). In a debate held in Parliament on… – Continue reading
The UK is proposing to introduce a unilateral, non-OECD co-ordinated anti-BEPS provision, referred to in the media as the “Google Tax”, with effect from 1 April 2015. The draft provision is very complex, and it will be time consuming to assess its potential impact on many common cross-border business structures…. – 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
India enacted transfer pricing rules in 2001, which require companies to conclude international transactions with associated enterprises at an arm’s length. The legislation is primarily targeted at large business groups who engage in base erosion and profit shifting to avoid paying corporate income tax in India. This article is the… – 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
(CS/vb) A former PwC employee could face up to 10 years in prison for leaking thousands of documents in what has become known as the LuxLeaks scandal, his lawyer has said. Informant Antoine Deltour spoke on French television station Canal+ on Tuesday, saying that among experts, tax avoidance schemes via… – Continue reading
THE South African Revenue Service (SARS) has already begun to tackle the erosion of the tax base through profit shifting, which was addressed in an interim report of the Davis tax committee that was released last month for public comment. SA loses billions of rand in revenue annually through the… – Continue reading
New research shows that 2014 saw many fundamental changes across the global tax system as governments look to reform their regimes for the long term, complying with new OECD guidelines, whilst significantly clamping down on multinationals in light of increasing public media scrutiny. The research was undertaken by Taxand, a… – Continue reading
Barbados appears to be moving into full financial information-sharing mode as the world’s most powerful countries put their foot down on tax evasion. It is already known that last November Government signed an Inter Governmental Agreement with the United States (US) to exchange information on their citizens who have thousands… – Continue reading
Controversial proposals for a law to make failing to declare offshore income a criminal offence seem to have been put on the backburner by The Treasury. Chancellor George Osborne announced the measure as part of a campaign to stamp out tax evasion as part of his Budget 2014. However, no… – Continue reading
What’s coming our with with regards to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in 2015? 2015 sees a number of impeding developments regarding FATCA compliance as the US presses on with its quest to target tax non-compliance by U.S. taxpayers with foreign accounts. Nick Matthews, Global Head of Forensic… – Continue reading
What’s coming our with with regards to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in 2015? 2015 sees a number of impeding developments regarding FATCA compliance as the US presses on with its quest to target tax non-compliance by U.S. taxpayers with foreign accounts. Nick Matthews, Global Head of Forensic… – Continue reading
As a means of encouraging the development of intellectual property (IP) in Italy, rather than elsewhere, a “patent box” preferential tax regime has been introduced with effect from January 1, 2015, at the same time as a restructuring of the country’s research and development (R&D) tax credit system. Following the… – Continue reading
The Cayman Islands government announced it will not implement a central register of beneficial ownership information, but will continue its current method of providing this type of information to law enforcement, tax and regulatory authorities. At the same time, government proposes to enact new legislation that will improve access to… – Continue reading
Multinational enterprises (MNEs) may be concerned about various aspects of the six Discussion Drafts released during the third week of December 2014 as part of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Action Plan. Three of the papers are within Action items 8 to 10 of the BEPS Action Plan… – Continue reading
As the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) passes the halfway point in its joint project with the G20 to address base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) concerns, it is worth pausing to examine what the consequences of some of the proposed changes may be. Much of the focus… – Continue reading
The future for offshore tax planning, also known as “aggressive tax planning” is likely to be limited to if not curtailed by the global exchange of information agreement signed in October, 2014 by 51 countries and growing. The link below is to a video summary of the predicted consequences of… – Continue reading
The Cayman Islands has published a new report stating that, while it will not introduce a central registry of information on the beneficial ownership of companies, it will tighten up its beneficial ownership regime in other areas. The report follows industry consultation between November 2013 and February 2014 and broadly… – Continue reading
Multinationals told to be more cautious about intra-group transactions as Beijing imposes stiff measures against avoidance and evasion Multinationals have been advised to take notice of Beijing’s New Year resolution to crack down on tax avoidance and evasion, especially after the announcement of the general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR) and new… – Continue reading
IN A PREVIOUS column (http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Economy&title=the-oecd-action-plan-on-base-erosion-and-profit-shifting&id=99561), we wrote about the general framework of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) initiative, why addressing BEPS is a key priority for many governments across the globe, and the 15-point BEPS Action Plan drafted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The… – Continue reading
FORMER Minister for Justice Gerry Collins has declined to comment on correspondence from his solicitors accusing the Public Accounts Committee of “exceeding its jurisdiction” in any further pursuit of allegations he had an Ansbacher offshore account. Mr Collins, as well as another retired Limerick minister, Des O’Malley, earlier this month… – Continue reading
New Delhi: As a probe continues into misuse of stock markets for routing black money and tax evasion, the regulatory and other agencies suspect that GDR route is being used for bringing back suspected illicit funds stashed abroad. The modus-operandi, in cases currently under scanner, involves an intricate web of… – Continue reading
We will probably never know their names, but one thing we do know – one in 20 of the richest people in Australia tried to evade paying their fair share of tax in recent years. By what authority do we know this? By none other than the Australian Taxation Office…. – 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
The new deoffshorisation legislation that passed with lightning speed through Russia’s Parliament and then hastingly signed by President Putin in the time span of a week and a half, comes into force on January 1, 2015. The new deoffshorisation legislation that passed with lightning speed through Russia’s Parliament and then… – Continue reading
BRUSSELS – As political honeymoons go, it was short and ended abruptly. Just one week into his job as European Commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker was broadsided by a series of newspaper articles outlining the depth and breadth of corporate tax avoidance schemes in Luxembourg. Schemes thought up and enacted while… – Continue reading
Businesses in the island’s vital financial services are gearing up for ‘substantial changes’ dealing with tax. That was one of the important messages to come out of a seminar organised by KPMG in the island. More than 200 experts attended the event which covered a series of changes in property… – Continue reading
The Cayman Islands Government today issued a report stating that it will continue its current method of providing beneficial ownership information to law enforcement, tax and regulatory authorities, as the method adheres to global standards. As explained in its Consultation Report on Maintenance of Legal and Beneficial Ownership Information, Government’s… – Continue reading
The conditions for becoming tax-resident and tax non-resident vary from country to country and depend on such things as length of stay, type of accommodation, location of family, and nationality. In most tax systems, presence of an individual in a country for 183 days or more in any 12-month period… – Continue reading
Once a niche proposal, the recent public focus on corporate tax avoidance has sparked real interest in the idea of eliminating corporation tax altogether. Surprisingly, the statistics suggest that employees and other stakeholders may also benefit from this In winter 2012, hundreds of activists packed inside their local Starbucks after… – Continue reading
Swiss banks are training their crosshairs on Israeli customers. Legal sources said that in the past two weeks, the large banks in Switzerland have begun sending many queries to their Israeli customers demanding confirmation either that the assets deposited with the banks were reported to the Israeli tax authorities, or… – Continue reading
[HONG KONG] Asia could set another record for international bond issues in 2015 if Chinese companies continue to borrow offshore at the same voracious pace they did this year, while bankers expect a heavy redemption schedule and larger pipelines from India and Indonesia to lift activity. Barclays is forecasting volumes… – Continue reading
Currently, there is a tendency among those who take an interest in international tax developments to look to the future and try to guess how the international tax landscape will look in, say, three of four years, once countries begin to implement the OECD’s base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS)… – Continue reading
Regulator concerned over lack of reciprocity from US in Fatca norms Signing of an inter-government agreement (IGA) between India and the US on the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca) might not be smooth, despite New Delhi getting a one-month extension for this, as the Securities and Exchange Board of… – Continue reading
