Introduction Every non-US entity has FATCA status Passive NFFEs report substantial US owners Trustee of trust or its sponsoring entity will report US persons Other reporting FFIs in structure will carry out FATCA due diligence Reporting when US account holders are identified Enforcement Comment Introduction The policy statement in the… – Continue reading
Attorney General Eric Holder will leave office with a perfect record of not having busted a single senior banker The bank, HSBC, has been involved in criminal enterprises from dealing with terrorists and drug dealers to advising clients how to escape paying taxes. Yet no HSBC banker has gone to… – Continue reading
HMRC’s reporting of tax reliefs does not enable Parliament to scrutinise them effectively to determine whether they are providing value for money and the complexity of tax law and the constraints on HMRC’s resources mean that it is fighting an uphill battle against those who are determined to cheat the… – Continue reading
Former Greek Finance Minister Giorgos Papakonstantinou has been handed a one-year suspended sentence after a court found him guilty of helping three people dodge millions in tax. One of Greece’s previous legislatures was offered by IMF head Christine Lagarde a list of Greek citizens holding offshore accounts, in a move… – Continue reading
Michael Wilson rants that a long-cherished distinction between avoidance (OK) and evasion (not OK) is being eroded by political doublespeak. And that the demise of the 1936 ‘Duke of Westminster’ legal principle has gone sadly unnoticed. Where will it end? You hardly need telling that there’s an election on the… – Continue reading
Ghana and the Netherlands have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the Automatic Exchange of Information to help in efforts to fight tax evasion. The agreement would allow the tax authorities of the two countries to automatically provide each other with information about income from immovable property earned by… – Continue reading
Margaret Hodge accuses HMRC of bias On Monday it was the turn of Dave Hartnett, former secretary of HMRC and Edward Troup, the current tax assurance commissioner, to face the poisonous Public Accounts Committee chairperson, Margaret Hodge. The two were giving evidence as part of the Committee’s inquiry into tax… – Continue reading
Seven Caribbean countries find themselves on the US “Major Money Laundering List for 2015”. The United States Government published its “2015 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report” on Wednesday, and the Cayman Islands is on the list, reports CNS News. The other six Caribbean countries listed are Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas,… – Continue reading
As part of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill which Parliament is expected to approve today, the government is attempting to implement a public register showing who really owns companies. The bill is a good example of how UK legislation can affect countries around the world, especially those in… – Continue reading
The European Commission has published the first of two tax transparency packages to tackle corporation tax fraud and harmful tax competition in the EU. It is recommending greater co-operation across EU member states and the automatic exchange of information on tax rulings across EU countries, which sounds good on paper… – Continue reading
Law firm boss Tom Maher has been invited to be a speaker at a prestigious conference alongside the FBI special agent who caught the notorious ‘Wolf of Wall Street.’ He will also share the platform with a host of other newsworthy people in the business world including the whistleblower who… – Continue reading
A former Director of Public Prosecutions has accused banking giant HSBC of “grave” cross border crime and of engaging in “a systematic and profitable collusion in serious criminal activity” in the UK. According to the Independent, in a damming intervention Lord Ken Macdonald, who led the Crown Prosecution Service until… – Continue reading
(Reuters) – Net profits at LGT, Liechtenstein’s biggest bank, rose more than 18 percent last year, the bank reported on Monday, after it attracted fresh funds and acquired a large portfolio of accounts from HSBC’s private bank. The Vaduz-based lender, owned by the principality’s royal family, said last year it… – Continue reading
LONDON: HM Revenue & Customs has introduced a new strict liability criminal offence on both offshore tax evaders and those who help them following the UK Government’s clampdown on tax dodging in yesterday’s Budget. Under today’s new rules, tax evaders will no longer be able to plead ignorance in order… – Continue reading
The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) has criticised the government’s decision to press ahead with the introduction of a new ‘strict liability’ offence for offshore tax evasion. Although the CIOT says it is “generally strongly supportive” of the tax authority’s efforts to tackle evasion, it opposes the creation of a… – Continue reading
A leading Swiss banker told his Lebanese counterparts that the days of banking secrecy are over, urging the lenders to prepare their clients for this inevitable outcome. “The banks which attracted tax evaders can no longer continue in this pattern because the era of banking secrecy is over and an… – Continue reading
ZURICH, March 23 (Reuters) – Liechtenstein’s biggest bank LGT does not expect to suffer any fallout from assets it bought from HSBC’s private bank months before that business was embroiled in a scandal over allegedly helping clients to dodge taxes. Vaduz-based LGT, owned by the principality’s royal family, snapped up… – Continue reading
The Chartered Institute of Taxation has said the UK Government has taken its campaign against offshore tax evasion too far, after degrading taxpayer rights with confirmed plans for a new “strict liability” offense for offshore tax evasion. The CIOT said that, while it is generally strongly supportive of HMRC’s efforts… – Continue reading
Elizabeth Boardman wants the IRS to stop calling her frivolous. Ms. Boardman is a Quaker and a member of the Administrative Committee of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee. The Ninth Circuit turned down her appeal earlier this month. I wrote about the original district court decision over two… – Continue reading
Finnish tax officials have received a record number of tax evasion tip-offs since launching an online whistleblower service at the end of January. The tax administration says that nearly 80 percent of fraud reports now come in online. Finland’s tax authorities appear to have struck a rich vein by introducing… – Continue reading
Car dealers in Uganda who are unregistered importers are set to face the wrath of Uganda Revenue Authority as the tax body moves in to catch tax evaders. Last week, the tax body said more Ugandans were importing cars in the pretext of owning them, but when they reached the… – Continue reading
THE daughter of a multi-millionaire Sussex entrepreneur has been jailed over a £500,000 tax fraud. Theresa Bunn, 56, third child of the late Douglas Bunn, was sentenced to two years and eight months after lying about the value of her aunt’s estate. She told HMRC that Diana Vivien Pares-Wilson had… – Continue reading
Tour de France champion Vincenzo Nibali is reported to have avoided a potential six-month prison sentence after reaching an agreement with Italy’s tax authorities over undeclared income. The Astana rider failed to declare income totalling €772,000 for 2010 and 2011, which would have incurred a tax liability of €290,000, reports… – Continue reading
Asuncion, Mar 22 (Prensa Latina) The volume of tax evasion of transnational companies based in Paraguay is even higher than drug trafficking, said economist Verónica Serafini, who calculated that the profits achieved by foreign investors in 2012 reached billions of dollars, however the country did not receive tax contributions of… – Continue reading
Mainland authorities are targeting tax evasion by multinationals, implementing new regulations aimed at “unreasonable” payments such as for service and royalties to overseas related parties. “The tax administration’s nationwide audit has discovered instances of multinationals in China making unreasonable payments to related parties overseas, causing the erosion of our tax… – Continue reading
LONDON (CNN) – Greece is a tourist hot spot. But if you’re going to the islands this summer, would you mind being wired to catch tax cheats? A few tourists were asked if they would. “I’m here on holiday. I want to have a good time and I want to… – Continue reading
Blackmoney stashed abroad will entail a 10 year rigorous imprisonment and a whopping 90% tax under the proposed stringent law that provides for a limited window of opportunity to offenders to disclose illicit wealth and escape prosecution. Blackmoney stashed abroad will entail a 10 year rigorous imprisonment and a whopping… – Continue reading
Tax havens have historically offered respite for individuals and companies looking to avoid high levels of taxation in their home countries. Some countries have effectively set out to create an environment in which international financial transactions come under little scrutiny so that foreign individuals and companies can safely park their… – Continue reading
Croatia and the United States have signed an agreement on the application of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) concerning accounts in foreign financial institutions, in order to improve transparency between the two countries in the area of taxes, the Croatian Finance Ministry announced in a statement on Friday…. – Continue reading
This is the time of year when financial advisers really earn their fees. In the run-up to the end of the tax year, advisers must work hard to make sure that their clients have made the best use of their allowances before they lose them as the new tax year… – Continue reading
Argentina will move forward with its investigation of the HSBC offshore accounts in Switzerland, and will make public the names of those Argentine citizens and organizations that held money overseas in the financial entity, allegedly with the purpose of eluding local taxes. Swiss and French officials are also looking into… – Continue reading
The Treasury has rejected MPs’ arguments that the tax industry “cannot be trusted to regulate itself” and has called on professional institutes to “take on a greater lead and responsibility” in relation to tax avoidance, reports the Financial Times. The call for the institutes representing accountants and other professions to… – Continue reading
State prepared to engage constructively with European Commission, says Taoiseach, reports the Irish Times. Ireland remains opposed to the idea of a common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB), Taoiseach Enda Kenny said yesterday, though it is prepared to engage constructively with the European Commission on any new proposal unveiled. The… – Continue reading
The government pledged another tax clampdown yesterday, with the implementation of a so-called “Google tax” taking centre stage. The Treasury expects to raise £3.1bn over the next five years through the various measures announced. There has been ongoing concern in many quarters over what is perceived to be an unfair… – Continue reading
The government has moved to legislate in haste to close tax loopholes. But history suggests this is unwise. One legal figure to crop up in the chancellor’s budget statement published yesterday was the ubiquitous Sir Brian Leveson. The president of the Queen’s Bench Division receives a namecheck in the budget’s… – Continue reading
The Haryana Lokayukta, Justice Pritam Pal (retd), on Wednesday recommended, to the state government, that a criminal case should be lodged against the government officials, property developers, builders and others who are allegedly responsible for the Rs 10,000 crore tax evasion scam in the state. A Special Investigation Team (SIT),… – Continue reading
GENEVA: Facing a global crackdown including from India on their ‘safe haven’ tag, Swiss banks today asserted that “bank-client confidentiality” will not disappear and ‘automatic information exchange’ is not the only solution to the black money menace. The assertion comes at a time when Switzerland is in the process of… – Continue reading
Bern and Brussels have clinched a deal to exchange bank account data in an effort to tackle tax fraud. The agreement comes after a recent report exposed the global economic damage caused by offshore accounts. Switzerland and the European Union are teaming up to crack down on tax cheats, officials… – Continue reading
Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan says information sharing with foreign nations has allowed it to raise $730 million worth of tax liabilities over the past two financial years. In a speech to be delivered at the Tax Institute’s annual conference in Gold Coast on Thursday morning, Mr Jordan says he is… – Continue reading
ACCA takes note of the publication of the first of two tax transparency packages promised by the EC and welcomes, in principle, the proposal to extend the automatic exchange of information on tax rulings with some reservations. As part of its announced agenda to tackle corporate tax fraud and harmful… – Continue reading
The Israel Tax Authority and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs are using powerful technologies to close in on tax dodgers. In Britain, the mix of politics, the upcoming elections, the budget deficit and public pressure has provoked a whirlwind of controversy around the issue of tax avoidance and tax… – Continue reading
The UK government will press ahead with plans to create a new ‘strict liability’ criminal offence for the “worst cases” of offshore tax evasion, among a package of new measures targeting those who illegally evade tax and their advisers. Details of the plans, which include two new criminal offences and… – Continue reading
The recent cases of FCT v Darling [2014] FAM CAFC 59 (Darling) and International Litigation Partners Pte Ltd v FCT [2014] FCA 671 (Litigation Partners) have cast the spotlight on the Commissioner of Taxation’s (Commissioner) ability to access information from the contents of Family Court files in order to assist… – Continue reading
Advisers could face criminal charges under new powers for HMRC following the Budget if they fail to prevent tax evasion by inherited clients, a lawyer has warned. HMRC is consulting on a new corporate criminal offence for firms failing to prevent tax evasion, which will implicate advisers who have clients… – Continue reading
BANGKOK: — The cabinet has approved the Finance Ministry’s draft bill to amend the Revenue Code to give more teeth to taxmen in dealing with tax evasion by business operators. Government deputy spokesman Maj-Gen Sansern Kaewkamnerd said today that the bill seek to impose penalties against legal entities such as… – Continue reading
Seoul and Washington will exchange data on taxpayers’ bank accounts every September to bolster their tax revenue, the National Tax Service (NTS) said Wednesday. “If we regularly exchange data on taxpayers’ bank accounts with the U.S., it will help the tax authorities crack down on attempts at offshore tax evasion,”… – Continue reading
ISLAMABAD: The Natio¬nal Accountability Bureau (NAB) has forwarded several recommendations to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to plug loopholes that are believed to be the cause of massive tax evasion and other irregularities. The recommendations were given on Tuesday by the NAB’s Prevention Committee on FBR in its first… – Continue reading
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the signing of a protocol to the Russian-Chinese agreement aimed to eliminate double taxation and prevent tax evasion, the government said on its website on Wednesday. “Under the sanctions imposed on Russia by the European Union, US and other countries, the signing of… – Continue reading
UK financial institutions (FIs) that have no US-reportable accounts will not be required to submit annual ‘nil returns’ in order to ensure compliance with new rules designed to prevent tax evasion by US citizens, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has confirmed. The change comes after the US Internal Revenue Service… – Continue reading
KARACHI: The Pakistan Customs adjudication has forwarded the Q-Mobile tax evasion case to the Model Customs Collectorate (MCC) Preventive, Karachi for seeking legal and technical reference from the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). The adjudication department, during the hearing, has completely redundant the view point of MCC-Multan, because as per… – Continue reading
