India and Mauritius have signed a protocol amending the double tax avoidance arrangement between the two countries. The protocol is the outcome of an extensive and long-drawn-out negotiation process that has been going for more than a year and a half. While the text of the protocol is yet to… – Continue reading
Bank of Ireland has lost a £27m (€34.2m) tax avoidance case in the UK after an attempt to exploit a loophole that did not exist. HM Revenue and Customs challenged the attempt to avoid corporation tax by Bank of Ireland through a subsidiary, the former building society Bristol and West,… – Continue reading
The tax treatment of non-domiciled individuals is changing again from April 2017. The changes were first announced in the 2015 Summer Budget, and a Consultation document was issued in September 2015 setting out further details. The proposed changes target three key areas: The taxation of non-domiciled individuals who have been… – 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
Only a week after the so-called Panama Papers burst into the media spotlight early last month, the Canadian government issued a news release vowing to “crack down on tax evasion and tax avoidance.” The leak of a staggering 11.5 million documents from a Panama City law firm promised to reveal… – Continue reading
Australia announced a further crackdown on multinational tax avoidance in its annual budget on Tuesday, including the planned introduction of a UK-style diverted profits tax (DPT), that it expects to raise A$3.9 billion over the next four years. The government is creating a new Tax Avoidance Taskforce of 1,000 specialist… – Continue reading
IT’S ALL COMING TOGETHER: Corporate inversions. The Panama Papers. Those European investigations into big-name companies like Apple. And the BEPS project coming out of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. As Tax Pro Katy O’Donnell reports, tax practitioners and wonks might like to say that some of those things… – Continue reading
Panama Papers’ disclosures now and earlier dealings of Vodafone through Cayman Islands are stories of famous tax havens, which evoke discussions of how tax evasion takes place. These are all direct taxes, mainly corporate tax, and not indirect tax. These are cases of tax planning that come to the fore… – Continue reading
The UK Government has launched a consultation on plans to make the disclosure of value-added tax avoidance schemes (VADR) system more closely resemble the Disclosure of Tax Avoidance Schemes (DOTAS) regime. According to the consultation, “VADR should be more closely aligned with DOTAS to provide early information on new avoidance… – Continue reading
Thomson Reuters Checkpoint has just released a special report addressing the European Commission’s Anti-Tax Avoidance Package (ATA) and other global Country-by-Country Reporting (CbCR) developments designed in conformity with the OECD BEPS Action 13 recommendations. The report, BEPS Filing Requirements for Multinationals Under Country-by-Country Reporting, will help multinational enterprises (MNEs) gauge… – Continue reading
The former PwC employee turned whistleblower behind the LuxLeaks scandal that implicated Luxembourg in industrial tax avoidance went on trial in the tiny European duchy on Tuesday. Antoine Deltour, 30, a former auditor at global accounting firm PwC, is accused of stealing documents from his employer before he quit the… – Continue reading
On October 5, 2015, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) issued final tax policy recommendations stemming from its Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project. The reports, endorsed by the G20 Finance Ministers on October 8 and by the G20 leaders at their November 15-16 summit, consist primarily… – Continue reading
Each year the IRS comes out with a list of the most notable tax scams, informing the public on what to be on the lookout for come tax season. Each year the IRS comes out with list of tax scams called the Dirty Dozen, which is used to bring public… – Continue reading
Australia is following the path of the United Kingdom and is planning to create a public register that will unmask the shell company owners who take advantage of tax avoidance by the international companies. The Guardian reported that the Canberra government has expressed on making a public commitment to put… – Continue reading
Embarrassing our politicians and other public figures into publishing their tax returns is muddle-headed and distracting, however briefly satisfying. What we should be focused on is not what individuals are paying to the Treasury, interesting though that is, but unreasonable tax avoidance by multinational companies. There is a danger of… – Continue reading
The Panama Papers row has failed to deter Permira and TPG from bidding for offshore trust firms, Sky News learns. Some of the world’s biggest buyout firms are queuing up to buy a string of offshore trust administrators despite the escalating global furore about the leaked Panama Papers. Sky News… – Continue reading
ANALYSIS: Despite some action from both Labor and Coalition governments, multinationals are still using accounting tricks to avoid paying Australian tax.While politicians in Canberra bicker over whether or not to cut company tax, or whether it’s acceptable for effective income tax rates to rise through bracket creep, glaring leaks in… – Continue reading
History shows us that tax evasion can have terrible effects, from economic inequality to societal collapse. In a world seemingly inured to financial scandals, the Panama Papers leak has reminded us of their capacity to shock. This huge document dump, which has revealed thousands of offshore accounts held in the… – Continue reading
Genesis of CbC Reporting and How it will Affect U.S. Multinational Enterprises Country-by-country (CbC) reporting is essentially exactly what it sounds like: a report that shows every country where a multinational enterprise (MNE) operates and allocates income, earnings and pays taxes. The CbC report regulations proposed by the Internal Revenue… – Continue reading
The Revenue has published its consultation on proposing to make companies criminally liable for failing to prevent their staff facilitating tax evasion The offence was first proposed in the 2015 Budget and was expected to come into effect in 2020. The Panama papers leak and subsequent scandal has put significant… – Continue reading
The U.S. Treasury Department is finalising new tax rules aimed at combating the use of shell companies to evade taxes, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said on Saturday amid increased pledges by global finance leaders to cooperate on tax issues. In a statement to the International Monetary Fund’s steering committee,… – Continue reading
As April 18 looms near, it’s hard not to have taxes weigh heavy on our minds. For a lot of Vermont small businesses, this day can be bittersweet. Paying taxes typically means that, as a business, you’ve made money; and for most small businesses that alone is an achievement. Small… – Continue reading
Nearly half of people say the Prime Minister’s handling of his finances was ‘morally repugnant’, according to our opinion poll, and they support public tax returns for all As the fallout from the fallout from the Panama Papers leak begins to settle, the Prime Minister is left contemplating the damage… – Continue reading
Less than two weeks after publication of the Panama Papers, a year-long investigation by hundreds of news organizations around the world, including the Star, cast a bright light on the world of offshore tax havens, a new report from Oxfam reveals how much money the 50 largest U.S. corporations have… – 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
In the wake of the Panama Papers leak debates about the morality of taxation are back in vogue. Unlike tax evasion, tax avoidance is, by definition, legal. This is not the same thing as saying it’s acceptable. No one wants to live in a society where everything questionable is banned… – Continue reading
Businesses will be forced to declare how much they make in each European country and in certain tax havens as part of an attempt to curb schemes that shift profits out of the reach of tax collectors. The plan to introduce country-by-country reporting in Europe is the latest global curb… – Continue reading
India and Maldives today signed two agreements for exchange of information with respect to taxes, and for avoidance of double taxation of income derived from international air transport. The agreements were signed during the visit of President of Maldives Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom to New Delhi. Gayoom is on a… – Continue reading
The European Union’s executive wants thousands of multinationals to disclose in what member states they make money and pay taxes, an effort to close loopholes and crack down on the use of tax havens. Reacting to public anger over tax avoidance by some of the globe’s best-known companies and by… – Continue reading
Panama is a tax haven, but Mauritius is one with which India has a comprehensive double tax treaty. This complicates matters more. In popular Indian imagination, a tax haven is generally associated with Switzerland and its numbered bank accounts. But tax havens are numerous, have grown in importance, and are… – Continue reading
The chief of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Monday that the Panamanian government is expected to cooperate in international efforts to prevent tax avoidance after the revelation of the so-called Panama Papers. OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria said in a press conference in Tokyo that… – Continue reading
Tax avoidance on a grand scale is nothing new – the US President Barak Obama has led the way in tackling the issue head on with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) since 2010. FATCA demands non-American financial institutions should hand over details about accounts and investments controlled by… – Continue reading
TOKYO — Measures to deter tax avoidance will be discussed at next week’s meeting of Group of 20 finance ministers and central bankers in light of the release of the Panama Papers, including expanding an information-sharing agreement to include Panama and other countries. The release of leaked documents from a… – Continue reading
Much of the activity is legal, but it siphons away billions in tax revenue from government coffers The massive Panama Papers data leak shines a light not only on the dirty money being shuffled through tax havens, but also on the legal and common use of offshore accounts to significantly… – Continue reading
HMRC complicite in tax avoidance scheme after it emerged it rents its own office from tax haven based company A day on, the world is still reeling from the revelations of the Panama Papers leak, the full repercussions of which are yet to be felt. Eleven million documents leaked from… – Continue reading
US President Barack Obama has warned that “tax avoidance is a big global problem” and urged Congress to take action to eliminate tax loopholes. “A lot of it is legal, but that’s exactly the problem,” he said. His comments come a day after the US Treasury Department announced fresh plans… – Continue reading
Indonesia’s Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) is warning it will annul the investment permits of foreign companies that are proven to be avoiding payment of taxes. “We are ready to revoke the principal licenses, but to prove a transfer pricing, as a tax-avoidance practice, is not the BKPM’s job. It is… – Continue reading
HSBC, Credit Suisse and the Royal Bank of Scotland-owned bank Coutts Trustees have denied claims they are helping clients avoid tax by using complex offshore structures following the leak of the Panama papers. The banks were named in a list of 500 lenders who investigative journalists said had helped to… – Continue reading
Their tax avoidance is costing EU countries an estimated $80 billion per year. Multinational companies must pay taxes where they earn profits and stop using aggressive tax optimization schemes, the European Union’s Economics Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said on Monday. Moscovi told French radio RTL that the EU had to put… – Continue reading
It’s easy to stoke outrage at multinationals’ low taxes but harder to do something about it. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) – the so-called rich-countries club – tax avoidance by multinational companies is worth US$100-240 billion a year. That’s 4-10% of total global corporate income… – Continue reading
The number of multinational companies warning investors about the risk of higher taxes doubled in the past year, according to analysis by the Financial Times. Nearly a fifth of the US companies who warned on taxes were technology companies, the Financial Times found in a study of company filings. A… – 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
Investors alerted to risks of higher payments as crackdown closes loopholes A global crackdown on tax avoidance has forced a surge of warnings by multinational companies that higher payments are set to hit their earnings. A Financial Times analysis of company filings revealed that more than twice the number of… – Continue reading
The Commissioner of Taxation, Chris Jordan has assured the public it can have confidence in the compliance approach the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is taking to its wealthiest taxpayers. Following the release of tax details relating to about 300 private companies with incomes of $200 million or more, Mr Jordan… – Continue reading
The tax office plans to deploy a special unit and team up with the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) to probe thousands of foreign firms allegedly failing to pay their due taxes. Finance Ministry taxation director general Ken Dwijugiasteadi said around 2,000 foreign investment companies in various sectors, from industry and… – Continue reading
In a search for financial records of a U.S. taxpayer who allegedly parked undeclared income offshore, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) are seeking to enforce a summons against a U.S. branch of a foreign bank for records held by a foreign branch of… – Continue reading
The Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition is urging the Treasury Department to take further action to prevent companies from reincorporating overseas to lower their taxes. “It is time we eliminate this egregious offshore loophole to make sure that the corporations that benefit from all of the resources, protections,… – Continue reading
Even as more large companies announce plans to take advantage of the inversion loophole to avoid taxes, Congress has refused to move on commonsense legislation that would put an end to inversions. Fortunately, as outlined in a new letter signed by Citizens for Tax Justice and 54 other groups, there… – Continue reading
Multinationals with turnover of more than €750 million would have to publish profit and tax details on their websites under new European Commission plans, the Financial Times has reported. According to plans seen by the Financial Times, the Commission would impose the requirement on companies with subsidiaries in Europe as… – Continue reading
This article’s title may be shocking and antagonize Indonesia’s staunch position of opposing tax evasion by way of tax havens. But, let’s look deeper. While there is no standard definition of a tax haven, it is generally defined as a state, country or territory where tax rates are very low… – Continue reading
