An FCA spokesman said the regulator faced difficulty in pursuing action against HSBC because the behaviour publicised so far involved its Swiss unit, HSBC Private Banking (Suisse) SA, which the spokesman said was beyond the FCA’s jurisdiction. Britain’s financial watchdog said it was investigating HSBC following reports it helped clients… – Continue reading
Firms need clear rules, certainty to remain in compliance with tax law, says expert Heightened scrutiny of foreign companies’ tax practices is a sign of China’s effort to modernize its taxation system to keep up with the fast-changing international business environment, but there is another dimension that concerns the foreign… – Continue reading
Madrid’s public prosecution has accused two high-level tax officials under former prime minister José Luis Zapatero’s administration of helping hundreds of suspected tax dodgers implicated in the HSBC scandal to avoid possible jail sentences, according to Spanish daily newspaper El Pais. María Dolores Bustamante, the former director of tax management… – Continue reading
Last month, President Obama traveled to India where he famously befriended Narendra Modi and others. There, he heralded a new era of joint cooperation on many fronts, including the exchange of offshore account information. Last week, US Treasury Secretary, Jacob Lew was in India to follow up and meet with… – Continue reading
Labour will carry out a comprehensive review of tax planning schemes, including the use of deeds of variation on wills, should the party get to power following the general elections, shadow chancellor Ed Balls has said. Balls (pictured) told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on 15 February he would review… – Continue reading
Britain’s tax office has seen a surge in foreign governments making information requests about tax evasion over recent years. The number of requests to HM Revenue & Customs rose by 45% in 2013 to total 2,466, research from international law firm Pinsent Masons revealed. Ukraine had the biggest boost in… – Continue reading
Key staff at bank given £21m in salaries and bonuses in 2011 and 2012 But figure jumped almost 40% to £29.2m in 2013, financial reports say Bank is accused of helping customers to cheat taxman out of millions Admits failings in compliance & controls in Swiss private banking wing Staff… – Continue reading
PREMIER Rufus Ewing has called out United Kingdom Opposition Leader, Edward Miliband for published statements he recently made regarding the TCI being a tax haven. Miliband is reported in the UK press as stating that the UK overseas territories (OT) are not complying with UK directives on beneficial ownership of… – Continue reading
LONDON: HSBC’s Indian banking unit is at the heart of fresh revelations around tax evasion, days after a global expose showed tax dodging through accounts in the British major’s Swiss banking unit, a media report said today. It is alleged that representatives of HSBC India, which has employees based in… – Continue reading
The shadow chancellor has promised that a Labour government would crack down on what he called “systemic tax evasion”. Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Ed Balls drew a distinction between families who legitimately plan their tax affairs and those who, in his words, “set up false structures”. He… – Continue reading
Identities of Ghanaians said to have stashed $89million in a Swiss bank to evade tax could become public, Kweku Baako, Managing editor of New Crusading Guide newspaper has said. According to the veteran journalist, there has been some contact made with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists who are in… – Continue reading
Public fury over tax dodging by some clients of HSBC’s Swiss arm is set to escalate after sources close to the Revenue’s investigation said there would be no more prosecutions for tax evasion. Despite Revenue and Customs being handed details of 6,000 Swiss bank accounts held by UK residents and… – Continue reading
Budget should issue a) rules for announcements that were made in the budget in July 2014, (b) clarifications and guidance on matters that were at the centre of controversy during the past few years like equity infusion, valuations, etc. and (c) tax administrations, infrastructure and approach. The new government in… – Continue reading
COMPANIES registered in Caribbean islands by Cypriot law firms or consultancies form the bulk of the list of Cyprus-affiliated entries with deposits in HSBC Switzerland, daily Politis reported yesterday. The paper claimed to have obtained access to the full list of 106,000 depositors in the Swiss bank during 2006 and… – Continue reading
Feb 13 (Reuters) – France’s finance minister said on Friday Paris had not restricted the use of HSBC client data it passed on to UK authorities to help pursue tax evaders, contradicting comments by a senior British official. Britain’s Financial Secretary to the Treasury David Gauke said in parliament this… – Continue reading
In the last several years, a “record” number of Americans abroad have been giving up their passports: That’s supposedly due to the demands of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, known as FATCA, a US law enacted in 2010 to fight tax evasion by forcing foreign banks to share information… – Continue reading
HMRC has failed to prosecute a wealthy tycoon who did not pay tax for 24 years as Richard Bilton reports Tax inspectors failed to prosecute a wealthy tax cheat who did not submit returns or pay any tax for 24 years, documents seen by BBC Panorama show. HM Revenue and… – Continue reading
NEW DELHI: Committing to boost trade ties, India and the US today resolved to enhance cooperation, remove obstacles to investment flows and work towards early adoption of FATCA to facilitate automatic flow of tax information. “We are committed to share our experiences in tackling offshore tax evasion and avoidance. We… – Continue reading
NEW DELHI: India and the US on Thursday committed to take the renewed India-US partnership forward through “shared effort and progress for all” when Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Jacob J. Lew, US Secretary of the Treasury, met in the Capital for the Fifth Annual India-US Economic and Financial Partnership…. – Continue reading
Mr Falciani says his email warned tax collectors that thousands of British clients of an HSBC subsidiary in Geneva were using the bank to hide money. The email, from 2008, has been uncovered by Le Monde and seen by the BBC. Revenue and Customs and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)… – Continue reading
Tax paperwork seen as main culprit HONG KONG (CNNMoney) —Goodbye, sayonara, ciao, Uncle Sam! The number of Americans choosing to give up their passports hit a record 3,415 last year, up 14% from 2013, and 15 times more than in 2008, when only 231 people renounced their citizenship. Experts say… – Continue reading
Lord Fink, the former Conservative treasurer who threatened to sue Ed Miliband over his comments on tax avoidance, has conceded that the practice is normal in British society. The peer – a multimillionaire former hedge fund manager turned Conservative donor and philanthropist – also said he did take “vanilla” tax… – Continue reading
Documents detail customers who faced allegations including drug-running, corruption, doping and money laundering This article is the subject of a legal complaint made on behalf of Anura Perera. HSBC’s Swiss bank concealed large sums of money for people facing allegations of serious wrongdoing, including drug-running, corruption and money laundering, leaked… – Continue reading
HSBC is under fire, after a large cache of leaked bank files revealed that it helped clients evade taxes and conceal millions of dollars. The files, which cover the period 2005-07, amount to the biggest banking leak in history, shedding light on some 30,000 accounts holding almost $120bn. HSBC was… – Continue reading
LONDON – The chief executive of Britain’s tax agency was questioned by politicians over leaked documents that describe how HSBC’s Swiss private banking arm helped clients, including politicians, rock stars and dealers of illicit diamonds, hide billions of dollars before 2007. Members of Parliament criticized Lin Homer, the chief of… – Continue reading
According to the analysis of clandestine files belonging to British banking giant HSBC, it appears that the Swiss banking branch of the conglomerate played a pivotal role in assisting affluent depositors evade taxes on their mega million. A report released on Sunday, Feb 8, by a cadre of reporters representing… – Continue reading
NAMIBIANS who have Swiss bank accounts could face an Anti-Corruption Commission investigation if they evaded tax and money was transferred after the graft body was established. ACC director Paulus Noa told The Namibian yesterday that the ACC can only investigate the accounts if any Namibian holders of Swiss bank accounts… – Continue reading
Latin-American politicians Horacio Cartes (president of Paraguay), Álvaro Noboa (former president of Ecuador), and Alejandro Andrade (Venezuela’s ex-national treasurer) have one thing in common: they all possessed, until at least 2007, secret accounts with HSBC’s private Swiss bank. This according to the Swissleaks report published on Sunday, February 8, which… – Continue reading
WELLINGTON: More than 100,000 Rich Kiwis have been caught with extra tax bills as the result of a huge file leak revealing the global super wealthy hid millions of dollars from tax authorities with the help of HSBC’s Swiss private bank. Inland Revenue investigated New Zealand links to the leaked… – Continue reading
UBS has today confirmed it is involved in a fresh investigation by American authorities after it allegedly sold products to help US citizens evade tax. The Swiss bank said it is being investigated for selling “bearer bonds” and other unregistered securities, which are banned in the US. Last month it… – Continue reading
A Welsh Scout leader wanting to open a bank account was astonished when he was told he could only do so if he filled in a form for the United States tax authorities. Darren Stockton, who has run a Scout troop in Usk for six years, approached his local branch… – Continue reading
There are millions of Americans with unreported offshore bank and financial accounts. Under the new FATCA legislation, foreign financial institutions will soon be required to report account holders with ties to the United States. (FATCA is short for the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, a 2010 Obama initiative designed to… – Continue reading
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) joined discussions today with G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors to set priorities for continued economic growth during the Turkish G20 presidency. As part of Turkey’s G20 platform for inclusiveness, implementation, and investment – the three I’s of the government’s G20 2015 presidency… – Continue reading
MOSCOW – Former world tennis No. 1 Marat Safin has denied evading tax after a report linked him with Swiss bank accounts. The report, based on leaked documents from HSBC’s Swiss private bank, said Safin was linked to a client account which allegedly held up to $4.87 million in three… – Continue reading
ZURICH–Swiss bank UBS AG posted a slight gain in fourth-quarter profit on Tuesday, helped by a significant tax benefit and as it sharply reduced the amount of money set aside to deal with its continuing legal and regulatory issues. Zurich-based UBS said net profit in the quarter rose to 963… – Continue reading
The charitable foundation run by Hillary Clinton and her family has received as much as $81m from wealthy international donors who were clients of HSBC’s controversial Swiss bank. Leaked files from HSBC’s Swiss banking division reveal the identities of seven donors to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation with… – Continue reading
The Guardian’s very “word-heavy” front page is entirely taken up with details about what the paper calls “questionable practices” at a subsidiary of HSBC – one of the world’s largest banks. The paper says the financial institution’s private Swiss bank “helped wealthy customers dodge taxes and conceal millions of dollars… – Continue reading
GENEVA: HSBC’s Swiss banking arm, which according to leaked documents helped wealthy customers avoid millions in taxes in the past, insisted Monday it has since undergone a “radical transformation”. “HSBC’s Swiss Private Bank began a radical transformation in 2008 to prevent its services from being used to evade taxes or… – Continue reading
International clients include those involved in arms trade and blood diamondsA huge cache of secret files from the Swiss branch of one of the world’s largest banks includes Irish people who made tax settlements with the Revenue Commissioners for more than €4.5 million. Other clients include arms dealers who sold… – Continue reading
French newspaper Le Monde published details on a scandalous report revealing a tax evasion scheme in the Swiss branch of HSBC on Sunday. Bulgaria is also said to have been a part of the illegal dealings with EUR 380,8 M and 74 bank customers. According to authorities, over EUR 180,6… – Continue reading
NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 9: The “door for dialogue” with India remains open despite the current “difficult environment” on the tax-related information sharing front, the Swiss Finance Ministry has said. In a just released annual report on International Financial and Tax Matters 2015, Switzerland has admitted that its relations with India… – Continue reading
Feb 7 (Reuters) – A former Swiss banker charged by U.S. prosecutors with helping wealthy Americans evade taxes has been arrested in Germany pending extradition to the United States, his lawyer said on Saturday. Roger Keller, a onetime client adviser in Zurich at Wegelin & Co, was one of three… – Continue reading
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is trying to claw back £14 billion of taxes through a series of tax mitigation schemes it is investigating. According to the National Audit Office (NAO) which today issued a report on HMRC’s progress since 2010, HMRC has estimated there is £14 billion of tax… – Continue reading
A recent report detailing how Africa lost $US1-trillion in the last 50 years through illicit financial flows of money has raised questions about it’s abilities to curb fraud evasion and other means of corporate profit hiding. It has also sparked interest in holding multinational corporates, which are mainly responsible for… – Continue reading
Google has told the Australian parliament that it would prefer issues around taxation of multinational corporations to be dealt with by the G20 or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), rather than have individual countries attempt to go it alone. The Australian government is attempting to tackle profit… – Continue reading
(Reuters) – U.S. federal prosecutors have launched a new probe into whether Swiss bank UBS AG helped Americans evade taxes through investments banned in the United States, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the investigation. UBS, which paid $780 million in 2009 to settle a separate Justice… – Continue reading
Beijing is going after base erosion and profit shifting, and multinationals could get caught in the crosshairs. China is continuing to step up its efforts to curb what it sees as cross-border tax evasion by foreign-owned companies, announcing it will review how companies move money and allocate costs among their… – Continue reading
The US government is scrutinising UAE expats’ bank accounts in a bid to clamp down on tax evasion. Strict new rules that came into effect last year mean US expats who have retained dual nationality, and Gulf-based nationals born in the US or to an American parent, could be US… – Continue reading
THE European Union (EU) will not pursue a probe of national programmes that create tax breaks for research and development, giving a boost to drug and technology companies that generate revenue from patents. The EU’s hands were tied by a 2008 decision to approve a “patent box” tax break in… – Continue reading
In 2014, China continued to develop its taxation system affecting domestic and crossborder transactions. This “Legal Flash – Special Edition 2014” highlights the most significant tax updates of the year. Please see our monthly legal flashes for more information and analysis here. Taking a step-forward on anti-avoidance provisions, the State… – Continue reading
