WASHINGTON (VR)— A US law designed to rein in offshore tax evasion by US citizens—the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA— is set to ensnare Russian banks in near chaos if Russia does not iron out how it will comply with the law in the next few weeks. The… – Continue reading
Up to December 31, 2013, Mexico did not tax dividend payments. However, the Mexican Income Tax Law (“MITL”) that entered into force on January 1, 2014 established a new 10 percent withholding tax on the gross amount of dividend payments made by legal entities resident in Mexico for tax purposes… – Continue reading
Finmin says it decided to propose withdrawal of conciliation offer after Vodafone said it could be resolved only through international arbitration The finance ministry on Monday said it had decided to propose withdrawal of its conciliation offer to Vodafone after the British telecom company said the transfer-pricing issue could be… – Continue reading
Kevin E. Thorn, Managing Partner of the Thorn Law Group discusses the recent negotiations between the U.S. Department of Justice and Swiss bank Credit Suisse and the effect that any potential settlement may have on the rest of the banking community and the U.S. Taxpayers who still may have undisclosed… – Continue reading
Exempting domestic currency government bonds from withholding tax is long overdue in much of South and East Asia as the move would have a significant and beneficial economic impact. The mature economies in Europe and North America (and also Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore) no longer withhold tax on government… – Continue reading
Three members of Take That are reported to have invested in a tax avoidance scheme – so will they join our festival line-up of stars who, through schemes or leaving the country, have avoided tax? Whether by moving country or through schemes and accountants, celebrities finding ways to avoid tax… – Continue reading
African countries are losing up to 12.7% of their national GDP due to shady practices in international trade. Global Financial Integrity, a Washington DC-based think-tank, reports that $542bn (£321bn) worth of capital was lost from Africa in illicit capital flows and estimates that almost 80% of this coming through “trade… – Continue reading
According to Treasury Department statistics published in the Federal Register, 1001 United States taxpayers gave up their passports or their green cards in the first quarter of 2014, an increase of 47.4 percent over the 679 individuals that did so in the first quarter of last year. This figure was… – Continue reading
Swisspartners Group, a Zurich-based money-manager, resolved a U.S. criminal tax probe by paying $4.4 million for helping American clients use secret accounts to evade taxes. In return, the government agreed not to prosecute the firm, citing its “extraordinary cooperation.” The agreement resulted from Swisspartners’ voluntary production of the files for… – Continue reading
Oil major Cairn India and its former British parent Cairn Energy Plc have moved the Delhi High Court challenging the validity of New Delhi’s controversial 2012 retrospective amendment to law that imposed tax liabilities on several high-profile offshore transactions of Indian assets including Cairn’s. The court will take up the… – Continue reading
The Minister with responsibility for Financial Services, Albert Isola, signed an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) between the US Government and the Government of Gibraltar at a signing ceremony in the US Embassy in London on Thursday. The agreement aims to improve international tax compliance through mutual assistance in tax matters based… – Continue reading
Significant CGT changes affecting UK residents hidden in government plans to tax non residents. In responding to HM Revenue & Customs’ (HMRC’s) plans to extend capital gains tax (CGT) to non-residents in certain circumstances, the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) has voiced concern over the proposed withdrawal of the principal… – Continue reading
Some key tax or moneylaundering havens may be all set to lose the secrecy that surrounds their banking practices, with 64 jurisdictions, including Switzerland, Singapore, Liechtenstein and the Cayman Islands signing on Tuesday a far-reaching declaration on tax data sharing. Signatories to the ‘Declaration on Automatic Exchange of Information in… – Continue reading
May 7th, 2014 (InsideCostaRica.com) Tax evaders and privacy advocates beware – Costa Rica and 46 other countries signed up yesterday to automatically share banking, financial, and tax information in what the OECD is touting as a major step towards cracking down on global tax evasion. The Declaration on Automatic Exchange… – Continue reading
No other U.S. pension, endowment or foundation manager has invested as heavily in emerging-market ETFs as the New Jersey Pension Fund, a $3.2 billion gamble at its height. Now the state’s reversing course. The $76.8 billion fund, the 12th largest public pension manager in the U.S., has cut its holding of developing-nation exchange-traded funds… – Continue reading
The Decree Law No. 145 of December 23, 2013 (ratified by Law No. 9 of February 21, 2014) broadens the scope of the international ruling procedure. The main area of application is transfer pricing, in particular advance pricing agreements, but it may also apply to (i) the attribution of income… – Continue reading
Switzerland is no longer considered as a “tax haven”. Being the world’s largest offshore financial center, Switzerland has agreed automatically to share foreigners’ account information with other countries. Analysts say that this is good news for the other countries, however, for the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) corrupt officials, it seems… – Continue reading
Calls for crackdown as investigation finds huge Indonesian corporations evading tax through network of secret shell companies in British Virgin Islands and other tax havens Giant Asian logging companies that make billions from destroying rainforests use a labyrinth of secret shell companies based in a UK overseas territory, the British Virgin… – Continue reading
There’s a little rumpus building up in my native UK over the coffee chain, Caffe Nero. The argument is that it seems to be making a nice operating profit but not actually paying any corporation tax. There’s also a bit of offshore thrown in here and therefore, undoubtedly, there’s something… – Continue reading
Yesterday, headlines in the majority of the press focussed on allegations that Gary Barlow and his Take That band mates had used a “shady investment scheme” in order to avoid paying taxes on their whopping incomes… The Sun reported that following a tribunal, Gary and band mates Mark Owen and… – Continue reading
ISLAMABAD: The government has geared up efforts to deal with the situation following the enforcement of Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act (FACTA) by the United States asking the Pakistanis having US nationality and multinational companies doing business in both the countries to submit taxes on their income to the US… – Continue reading
As they continue their efforts to clamp down on the menace of black money, India and other countries will have to wait at least till 2017 before the new global standard for automatic exchange of tax information comes into effect. India, Switzerland and 45 other nations had agreed upon automatic… – Continue reading
This is an interesting little piece of news. As Fiat Chrysler sorts itself out after the full merger of the two companies it has announced that it will be, as a company, domiciled in Britain. This would seem to be a vindication of recent changes to the UK’s corporate taxation… – Continue reading
Agreement will help ease reporting burden of financial firms of American customers The government said yesterday it would sign a tax agreement with the United States this year that will help reduce the reporting burden of financial firms under the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca). The accord will… – Continue reading
Margaret Hodge, the chair of the public accounts committee, has called on shoppers to boycott Amazon after it was revealed that the online store paid just 0.1% tax last year. Drawing on the indignation provoked earlier by Starbucks, Hodge advised shoppers to shun Amazon, noting that it paid just £4.2m… – Continue reading
ISLAMABAD: The government has geared up efforts to deal with the situation following the enforcement of Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act (FACTA) by the United States asking the Pakistanis having US nationality and multinational companies doing business in both the countries to submit taxes on their income to the US… – Continue reading
In an attempt to clean the image of Singapore as a tax haven and to wipe out money laundering activities, Singapore has concluded an Inter-governmental agreement (IGA), Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) with the United States. The stringent compliance required by the act will attract genuine funds to the… – Continue reading
The agreement of Switzerland to disclose information on banking accounts in its territory, at the risk of its time-honored status as the world’s foremost tax haven, may prompt the wealthy worldwide, including Chinese nationals, to search for new shelters for their fortunes. Switzerland, the world’s largest offshore financial center, announced… – Continue reading
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Hong Kong has reached an information-sharing agreement with the United States under a new law meant to combat offshore tax dodging by Americans, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Friday. Set to take effect on July 1, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act of 2010 (FATCA) will… – Continue reading
In Budget 2013, the Government announced its intention to consult on possible measures to combat treaty shopping. Eleven months later, in Budget 2014, the Government invited comments on a proposed domestic anti-treaty abuse rule. This article briefly reviews developments arising between the two budgets and provides high level comments in… – Continue reading
Telecom major Vodafone‘s international arbitration notice in its Rs 24,000-crore tax dispute with the government came after the income tax department decided to withdraw its conciliation offer in the matter without waiting for a tribunal’s decision in the transfer pricing case. Officials said the tax department had prepared a Cabinet note to withdraw conciliation on… – Continue reading
Bloomberg BNA is reporting that Israel has signed a FATCA IGA. The agreement is a Model 1 agreement, meaning that Israeli financial institutions will will report information about U.S. customers’ accounts to the Israeli tax authorities, who will then send that information to the IRS. The news comes only a… – Continue reading
Monday, May 5 saw the Finance Ministry of Israel confirm that the US and the Jewish-majority state had concluded the text of an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) for the implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). Earlier, with Israel and the US reaching an agreement over sharing of tax… – Continue reading
Financial institutions making “good faith” efforts to comply with new US tax reporting rules will not face full enforcement action for any lapses until the end of 2015, the country’s tax authorities have announced.07 May 2014 Tax Disputes and Investigations Banking Banking & Restructuring Tax Corporate tax Private wealth tax… – Continue reading
The President of the Republic of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, approved a draft agreement between the Government of the Republic of Belarus and the Government of the United States of America on the improvement of compliance with international tax rules and the implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) as a basis… – Continue reading
Without a firm deadline in place from the IRS, U.S. citizens and resident aliens need to comply as soon as possible with the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program to avoid significant penalties and criminal prosecution. Modeled after the Offshore Disclosure Initiative, OVDP was passed in 2012 and increases the maximum Foreign… – Continue reading
The United States Internal Revenue Service is to regard calendar years 2014 and 2015 as an enforcement and administration transitional period with respect to the implementation and enforcement of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. FATCA, enacted by the US Congress in 2010, is intended to ensure that the US… – Continue reading
• Partnership creates end-to-end solution for enabling and ensuring FATCA compliance, including: data consolidation, indicia identification, additional KYC data/document capture, alerts/notifications and dashboards to monitor compliance, withholding calculations and remittance, and tax reporting. Banking analytics, risk and compliance pioneer, iCreate, today announced a strategic partnership with tax information reporting leader,… – Continue reading
Stockbroking firm Redmayne-Bentley has stopped offering its services to US clients as it moves to comply with incoming tax regime FATCA. With groups and wealth managers scrambling to ensure they are compliant ahead of the first significant deadline this week, Redmayne-Bentley said it has registered with the IRS, but has… – Continue reading
Singapore has concluded its discussion with the United States on an inter-governmental agreement that aim at preventing tax evasion by US citizens, permanent residents and entities, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the city-state’s Ministry of Finance and Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) jointly announced on Tuesday. The agreement… – Continue reading
The number of Americans renouncing United States citizenship or terminating long-term residency is on a record pace. Every 3 months, the government publishes the names of individuals who renounced U.S. citizenship or gave up a green card. This public outing puts Americans on notice who relinquished their rights. For January… – Continue reading
Because of a delay in the negotiation of an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) to implement the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) advised Pakistani financial institutions, as a precaution, to complete registration with the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by May 5, 2014, at… – Continue reading
To avoid costs of compliance, financial institutions in India may decide to filter the US client that they want to be on board. However, the actual impact be realised once RBI, SEBI and other regulators come out with guidelines to ensure compliance with FATCA in their respective domains The Foreign… – Continue reading
Ministry Asks Cabinet To Issue Decree KUWAIT CITY, May 4, (KUNA): The Ministry of Finance has announced that the State of Kuwait joined the list of countries which agreed initially in substance on the FATCA (Intergovernmental Agreement). The Ministry disclosed that they have agreed on substance regarding the FATCA… – Continue reading
OTTAWA — The NDP is calling on the federal government to delay passing legislation aimed at cooperating with the United States in taxing its citizens living in Canada, saying the law could “violate the privacy and constitutional rights” of those residents and needs to be studied more closely. The U.S…. – Continue reading
United States Intergovernmental Agreement The British Virgin Islands (“BVI”) Government on 6 March 2014 initialled a “Model 1 intergovernmental agreement” (the “BVI-US IGA”) with the government of the United States of America with respect to the “Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act” provisions of the Internal Revenue Code (“FATCA”), designed to… – Continue reading
New Democrats are calling on the Conservatives to acknowledge the concerns with the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and agree to remove it from Budget Bill C-31. “Despite broad opposition, the Conservatives are charging ahead with the implementation of this agreement,” said NDP National Revenue Critic Murray Rankin (Victoria). “Serious… – Continue reading
India has strongly objected to Switzerland’s denial of information about account details of certain Indians at HSBC’s Swiss bank branches, in whose cases “incriminating evidence of tax evasion” has been found. In a strongly worded letter to his Swiss counterpart, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has also warned that an effective… – Continue reading
SINGAPORE–Financial institutions based in Singapore will need to regularly report information on U.S.-owned financial accounts, after the Asian financial center agrees a deal that would help the U.S. curb offshore tax evasion. The move is part of Singapore’s push to toughen mechanisms for tackling cross-border tax offenses, as it emerges… – Continue reading
Australia has signed an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) with the US in order to “reduce the burden” on financial institutions when complying with FATCA. Australian treasurer Joe Hockey said the IGA will “minimise costs” by simplifying due diligence requirements, as well as broadening arrangements between the Australian Tax Office and the… – Continue reading
