KATADATA – Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro asks exporters to refrain from tax avoidance schemes, especially transfer pricing. Tax avoidance will cause losses to the state because it reduces tax revenues. “Transfer pricing has constantly reduced our tax revenues. I urge exporters to stop this practice because it is strongly related… – Continue reading
Bill Dodwell comments: “Chancellor George Osborne will deliver the final Autumn Statement of this parliament. We expect that most of the announcements will concentrate on the outcomes from proposals launched at earlier Budgets, together with some technical changes. There will also be the first consultation on how the UK should… – Continue reading
“Nothing abnormal about the way Starbucks is run” The new chief executive of Starbucks has admitted that the coffee shop chain is unlikely to pay any UK corporation tax for another three years. Speaking to the Evening Standard, Mark Fox said the tax wouldn’t be applicable until the company turned… – Continue reading
What unites the dates February 12, 2013, July 19, 2013, and September 16, 2014? They are the key dates to this point in the OECD’s crusade against base erosion and profit shifting, which will be remembered either as a well-coordinated campaign against abusive tax avoidance by large multinational enterprises, or… – Continue reading
December 2: A tax commission charged with examining the tax system in Norway today submitted its report—NOU 2014: 13—to the Minister of Finance that describes proposals for changes to the corporate tax system and for adjustments to the tax system, in general. The tax commission’s report will be submitted for… – Continue reading
AN essential part of the Transfer Pricing (TP) documentation process is that of finding and selecting closely comparable companies. Only comparable, independent companies can truly establish the arm’s length nature of the intercompany transactions under review. This process of finding comparable companies and the arm’s length price they pay or… – Continue reading
In the African tax sphere, the trend remains for headline tax rates to continue to remain stable or decrease. Withholding tax rates have generally remained stable, although the experience of Dentons and our clients is that African tax authorities are requiring tax to be withheld from payments that have not… – Continue reading
If you want to know how your local school is performing, you can check the My School website for data on its results, funding, enrollments and more. If you want to be sure about a company you’re doing business with, you can search ASIC’s registers for details of its ownership,… – Continue reading
New Delhi, India is moving towards a tax-friendly regime to erase the “bad name” it has earned over the years, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday. “Our tax system has to be friendly with tax payers and that is what we are trying to do step by step,” he… – Continue reading
NEW DELHI: Tax authorities are making a fresh bid to engage with taxpayers as they attempt to present a friendly face and wipe out the ghosts of controversial tax disputes of the past, which attracted global criticism. Reaching out to the taxpayer, both small and large, the department has lined… – Continue reading
November 28: Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service previously indicated that it would no longer accept tax returns filed by non-resident companies on a “deemed profit basis,” but that non-resident companies must file their tax returns on an “actual profit basis.” These returns are to include audited financial statements as well… – Continue reading
November 28: The French legislative assembly on 18 November 2014 passed a draft Finance Bill for 2015, thereby sending the bill to the Senate for its consideration. One of the provisions in this legislation would “tighten” the transfer pricing penalties for a taxpayer’s failure to respond to a request by… – Continue reading
Passage by the French assembly on 18 November 2014 of a draft Finance Bill for 2015 (which now will be presented to the Senate) Introduction by the French government on 12 November 2014 of a second draft amended Finance Bill for 2014 In general, the draft Finance Bill for 2015… – Continue reading
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), once again finds itself deep in controversy and this time, on foreign shores. The company has been hit with a $140 million in taxes and interests presented by the Chinese government. This came to light in a rare incident of cross-border tax invasion. An article was published by… – Continue reading
New Delhi: Industry body Ficci has welcomed Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi asking the Income Tax Department to not file an appeal against the Bombay High Court judgment in the transfer pricing case of Vodafone. “FICCI welcomes the decision of the government not to appeal against the judgment relating to the… – Continue reading
The latest work by the OECD tax policy team to review global tax rules is beginning to have an impact, particularly in Europe where Switzerland and Ireland are reforming their current tax rules, says Bill Dodwell, head of tax policy at Deloitte One unsurprising outcome of the OECD’s Base Erosion… – Continue reading
Martin Lock was formerly the top withholding-tax specialist at the Tax Office, a role that encompassed oversight of profit shifting by multinationals. He is one of many former officers who have voiced their concerns to Fairfax Media about the challenge of arresting the slide in tax receipts from multinational companies… – Continue reading
(Reuters) – China has levied about $140 million in back taxes from Microsoft Corp in the first major case concerning cross-border tax evasion in the country, as regulators ramp up pressure on U.S. corporations doing business there. According to an article published by China’s Xinhua official news agency on Sunday,… – Continue reading
When is a Chinese company not Chinese? When it’s a complex web of offshore vehicles rooted in anonymous tax havens. That description includes some of the People’s Republic’s most successful and innovative companies. It will make the country’s apparent new push on tax evasion hard to enforce. Authorities have extracted… – Continue reading
On November 21, 2014, as part of its Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS), the OECD released a discussion draft on “Follow-up work on BEPS Action 6: Preventing Treaty Abuse” (the Discussion Draft) for comments. The Discussion Draft deals with a number of issues relating to tax… – Continue reading
TRANSFER pricing (TP) audit is a bit different from normal tax audits. It primarily focuses on reviewing transfer pricing returns and supporting TP documentation submitted by taxpayers who had engaged in related party transactions in the preceding year of assessment. This approach is necessary in order for the tax authority… – Continue reading
Transfer pricing can be identified as an area of tax law that continues to attract the attention of both tax authorities and businesses worldwide. The growing importance of transfer pricing can be observed in the Slovak Republic as well, as it has become one of the dominant tax issues addressed… – Continue reading
The concept of base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) has been debated at various international forums following discussions at the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting and the G20 Heads of State summit in Russia last year. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) BEPS Action Plan… – Continue reading
By closing the tax gap, South Africa can reap billions of rands to benefit the economy. A global crackdown on tax avoidance has begun and South Africa is forging ahead in a bid to tackle wealthy individuals and corporates who practise this tactic. The initiative is better poised to succeed… – Continue reading
On September 16, 2014, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (“OECD”) released seven reports addressing certain aspects of the base erosion and profit shifting (“BEPS”) project. The seven BEPS reports released by the OECD include tax challenges of the digital economy (Action 1), hybrid mismatch arrangements (Action 2), countering… – Continue reading
Background In July 2013, the G20 Finance Ministers, including Australia, fully endorsed the base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) Action Plan. As a result of the Action Plan, the Australian government encouraged a new commitment to focus resources on investigating international business structures to ensure companies pay tax in the… – Continue reading
THE South African Revenue Service (SARS) is investigating possible changes to the law to make it easier for it to audit transfer pricing by multinational companies to ensure that they pay their rightful tax dues to the government. The need to maximise tax revenue has become particularly acute in the… – Continue reading
Meredith McBride in Hong Kong Mitsubishi Corporation India’s victory over the Indian tax authorities in the New Delhi Tax Tribunal on the use of the Berry ratio (gross margin divided by operating expenses) sets important precedents for transfer pricing litigation in India, advisers believe, because it legitimises the use of… – Continue reading
UK and multinational enterprises are starting to consider (re)organising themselves under a UK holding company for their global operations, rather than using other traditional onshore holding company jurisdictions. This new trend is the result of a number of factors, which have moved the UK from an outside choice as an… – Continue reading
In our previous post, we looked at the ways that global corporations minimise their tax burdens by routing income through offshore tax havens and transfer pricing. The ultimate beneficiaries of these shenanigans, of course, are actual people rather than legal entities. Many of these people also take advantage of offshore… – Continue reading
Nobody likes paying taxes. The rich, however, can reduce the burden more easily than others because capital is more mobile than labour. A clever new paper in the Journal of Economic Perspectives by Gabriel Zucman attempts to measure how much government revenue is lost because of the careful re-routing of… – Continue reading
Order relates to the issuance of 870 mn shares by Shell India to an overseas group entity, Shell Gas, in March 2009 Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Tuesday ruled in favour of the Indian subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell Plc in connection with two transfer-pricing adjustments made by the… – Continue reading
The European Commission, in an “Opening Decision” published on November 14, 2014, said that an advance tax ruling provided by the Netherlands to coffee group Starbucks appears to constitute state aid, in violation of European Union (EU) rules. In a 40-page letter to the Dutch authorities, the Commission detailed the… – Continue reading
IN July 2014, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) sent letters to some tax consultants requesting their non-resident clients operating in Nigeria to file complete tax returns effective from 2014 tax year. In practice, non-resident companies file their tax returns on the deemed profit basis. Following an initial period of… – Continue reading
Apex industry body ASSOCHAM has urged the Centre to amend the Indian income-tax law so as not to introduce the general anti avoidance rules (GAAR) from assessment year 2016-17 as India’s economy is neither mature enough to stand up to its exacting standards nor is the tax administration ready to… – Continue reading
ITR Correspondent In an effort to provide taxpayers with an integrated procedural framework for the negotiation of advance pricing agreements (APAs), the Greek Ministry of Finance recently released template application forms for both preliminary consultations and formal negotiations, as well as additional guidelines on the overall APA procedure. The forms… – Continue reading
You know those annoying “We Agree” television ads by the fossil fuel corporate giant Chevron? The ones where an actor playing a student or a concerned member of a community “agrees” with supposedly noble objectives of this multinational? Those ads make me feel like puking. The objective of this campaign… – Continue reading
Seventy percent of corporate tax professionals said they favor lowering the U.S. corporate tax rate, even if that means their companies would have to give up tax loopholes, according to a new study. The study, released Thursday by the Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters, gauged the opinions of… – Continue reading
BRUSSELS — European Union authorities have accused the Netherlands of making a special deal with Starbucks that helped the company lower its taxes, creating unfair advantages over other countries in the bloc. The report by the bloc’s competition authority, made public on Friday, is a preliminary finding in a review… – Continue reading
November 14: The European Commission (EC) today released a “non-confidential version” of its June 2014 EC decision to open an in-depth investigation concerning whether certain transfer pricing arrangements of a multinational entity with the Dutch tax authorities constitute state aid that is contrary to EU law. The investigation is identified… – Continue reading
NEIL CHENOWETH Global accounting firm PwC was advising the Australian Taxation Office how to run its transfer pricing unit at the same time that its Luxembourg office was cutting favourable tax agreements for Australian companies. Luxembourg documents show PwC obtained secret tax agreements for more than 30 Australian companies in… – Continue reading
The ability of multinational companies to shift profits into low-tax jurisdictions is undermining governments’ ability to raise revenue. But the cross-border policy solutions are complex. Curbing international tax avoidance has become a focus of G20 discussion this week, after last week’s revelation that major companies including Ikea, AMP and Pepsi… – Continue reading
November 13: Taxation Ruling (TR) 2014/6—issued yesterday by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO)—sets forth the Commissioner’s view on the application of the reconstruction provisions as contained in Australia’s new transfer pricing rules. The significance of these reconstruction provisions is that they authorise the Commissioner to re-price, reconstruct or disregard a… – Continue reading
The OECD released today its new Strategy for Deepening Developing Country Engagement in the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project, which will strengthen their involvement in the decision-making processes and bring them to the heart of the technical work. The BEPS Project aims to create a coherent set of… – Continue reading
The European Union’s 28 member states are seeking agreement on the proposed introduction of a common anti-abuse clause in the Parent-Subsidy Directive (2011/96/EU). The plans were discussed at a meeting of the EU’s Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) on November 7, 2014. The proposed anti-abuse clause would allow member… – Continue reading
12/11/2014 – The OECD released today its new Strategy for Deepening Developing Country Engagement in the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project, which will strengthen their involvement in the decision-making processes and bring them to the heart of the technical work. The BEPS Project aims to create a coherent… – Continue reading
November 12: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) today released a report addressing the role of developing countries with respect to the base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) project. As noted in today’s OECD release [PDF 259 KB], the BEPS project is intended to address tax planning strategies… – Continue reading
According to Bill Thompson, tax partner at Minter Ellison, Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) — the base erosion referred to as the tax base and its implications for future tax structures — will be a key focus at the G20 Summit in Brisbane, with possible rapid changes to the… – Continue reading
Australia – Transfer pricing reconstruction not limited to “exceptional circumstances” November 12: The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) today finalised a transfer pricing ruling that sets forth the Commissioner’s position on application of the reconstruction provisions, as outlined in section 815-130 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997. The ruling—TR 2014/6—covers… – Continue reading
Northern Ireland is a serious player in the international market to attract more foreign investment. The comprehensive requirement: can Northern Ireland offer a competitive combination of access to markets, favourable domestic costs including employment costs, an adequate infrastructure base, a stable society and taxation policies that help to ensure attractive… – Continue reading
