Nearly a third of the 26 large foreign banks operating in Australia, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Lloyds and BNP Paribas, had no taxable income in 2014, data released by the Australian Taxation Office shows. Eight banks with total revenue of $9 billion had no taxable income, while Credit Suisse, which… – Continue reading
Information from Reuters has brought to light the fact that five of the biggest banks operating in the UK (and worldwide) paid not a penny in corporation tax in 2014. Efforts to crack down on this kind of corporation tax avoidance have brought together Westminster’s political right and left. Deutsche… – Continue reading
If taxed on the nearly $100 billion dollars they keep offshore, the largest U.S. financial institutions could cover the U.S.’s entire poverty-focused foreign assistance budget for 2014. Tax havens are a scourge. They allow individuals and institutions to cloak their financial activity in secrecy to escape and undermine other jurisdictions’… – Continue reading
The investigation and prosecution of tax evasion has, in the last decade, grown from a specialized subcategory of law enforcement into a first-tier policy concern for the global community. Starting with the U.S. government’s crackdown on Swiss bank UBS in 2008, there has been a steady drumbeat of news about… – Continue reading
Current system viewed as unfair and too easy to circumvent Abolition of corporation tax is to be considered by a new cross-party group of MPs and peers who will subject ministers and business leaders to public interrogations in a bid to secure fairer and more responsible tax policies. The all-party… – Continue reading
The British government is facing a credibility crisis over its pledge to ensure multinational corporations pay their fair share of tax, after it was revealed that five of the world’s largest investment banks paid no corporation tax in Britain last year, despite making billions in profits. Analysis of the banks’… – Continue reading
UBS trades at 1.7 times book value while Barclays and Deutsche Bank trade at 0.7-0.8 times book value UBS RoE is 14 per cent while Barclays and Deutsche Bank can hardly manage five per cent. Ubs under Marcel Ospel was a victim of the 2008-09 global crash that lost $50… – Continue reading
x Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announces his new federal cabinet during a media conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, September 20, 2015. Australia got its fifth prime minister in as many years on Monday after the ruling Liberal Party voted to replace Abbott with former investment banker Malcolm… – Continue reading
As a newly-elected Australian lawmaker a decade ago, Malcolm Turnbull wrote an unsolicited 52-page proposal to reform the tax system. The report and its 281 recommendations were dismissed by the government and his costings called into question. Now, a month after replacing Tony Abbott as leader of the world’s 12th-largest… – Continue reading
Six of the nation’s largest banks — Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs — utilize a combined 395 known tax havens to avoid potential tax bills in the billions, according to a new analysis. In total, the big six banks kept $126 billion… – Continue reading
Jay Fishman, who built New York-based Travelers Cos. into one of the world’s biggest insurers, lamented that disparities in tax rates are pushing established rivals and industry newcomers outside the U.S. Over the past 15 years or so, “we’ve counted 10, 12, maybe even 15 Bermuda-based startups that ultimately became… – Continue reading
Stimulus unleashed by China’s central bank will cushion Chinese companies –the region’s biggest dollar debt issuers — from a potential Federal Reserve interest rate increase, making cheaper yuan funds available. Five interest rate cuts by the People’s Bank of China since November and rules to relax yuan bond issuance onshore… – Continue reading
The new head of Barclays Plc’s Swiss unit is pushing private bankers in Geneva and Zurich to double client assets in four years as international competitors exit the world’s largest hub for offshore wealth. James Buchanan-Michaelson, who joined from Coutts International in June, aims to increase Swiss assets, including loans,… – Continue reading
In May of 2012, and soon before Facebook’s IPO, Eduardo Saverin renounced his U.S. citizenship. Saverin was a co-founder of the social-networking site, and the consensus was that he gave up his citizenship to avoid U.S. taxes that would be levied after the offering. Saverin was widely denounced for his… – Continue reading
When it comes to opening its $5.7 trillion bond market to global central banks, China is rolling out the red carpet. The world’s top underwriters are struggling to get in the back door. Morgan Stanley set up a joint venture that’s helped manage 30.2 billion yuan ($4.9 billion) of note… – Continue reading
A U.S. Senate investigative subcommittee, which has used its power for more than a decade to scrutinize corporations and financial institutions for wrongdoing, is shifting its focus to keeping tabs on the government. The U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is slated to hold its first hearing under new leadership… – Continue reading
Hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb was singled out for criticism by labor leaders who are urging the U.S. to limit investors’ ability to lower tax obligations through offshore reinsurance ventures. “When just one hedge fund takes advantage of this loophole, it means hundreds of millions of dollars are lost that… – Continue reading
A recent report from the U.S. Treasury Department pinpoints U.S. banks as the source for more than $300 billion a year in dirty money. That leads to big fines for banks. But on the U.S.-Mexico border, it’s small business owners who are being blamed. Nearly a quarter million head of… – Continue reading
June 30 — Taxpayers continue to wrestle with big questions a year after the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act opened for business. Acknowledging that the Internal Revenue Service is doing its best to implement a complex law, issues still remain as the reach of FATCA goes global, practitioners told Bloomberg… – Continue reading
The UK’s largest bank HSBC has clung on to a place in the world’s top 10 banks, in a year which saw the global banking model under increasing threat. HSBC fell to ninth place from fifth last year with 153 billion dollars (£97 billion) of Tier 1 capital at hand,… – Continue reading
[BEIJING] Bank of China Ltd, the Chinese lender with the most overseas assets, aims to raise US$3 billion from foreign investors on Wednesday to help finance the nation’s new Silk Road project, a person familiar with the matter said. The lender is offering notes denominated in US dollars, euros, Singapore… – Continue reading
HSBC Holdings Plc and JPMorgan Chase & Co are in talks to relocate parts of their businesses to Luxembourg from the UK as they weigh the possibility of a British exit from the European Union, the Times reported. JPMorgan is close to setting up a bank based in Luxembourg to… – Continue reading
“The same methodology [in the HSBC case] appeared in the JP Morgan investigation, the most important given that there is a witness who has implicated himself, the corporation’s Latin American chief. Due to a conflict with his employer, he has made a complaint in Argentina naming himself as the organizer… – Continue reading
SAN DIEGO – A former J.P. Morgan Chase banker was ordered today to serve six months in prison for her role in a commercial bribery and tax-evasion scheme. While handing down the sentence to 51-year-old Lynda Sanabria in a San Diego courtroom, U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez also ordered her… – Continue reading
The U.S. is examining banks’ conduct as part of a wide-ranging corruption probe of international soccer that has led to charges against 14 people, including officials with the sport’s organizing body. Money involved in the two-decade-old bribery scheme passed through U.S. banks including Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co.,… – Continue reading
Six of the biggest names in global finance shelled out billions of dollars Wednesday to settle charges of rigging currency markets, but liberal lawmakers complain the government is just doling out slaps on the wrist. On Wednesday, the Justice Department announced a settlement that also saw five banks plead guilty… – Continue reading
(Reuters) – U.S. bank JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N) has been placed under formal investigation in France as part of a probe into alleged tax evasion by senior managers at investment firm Wendel (MWDP.PA), a court official said on Wednesday. A Paris-based spokesman for JPMorgan declined to comment on the move, part… – Continue reading
Warren Buffett, the billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said he expects a slump in reinsurance results in the coming decade as investors enter the market. “It’s a business whose prospects have turned for the worse and there’s not much we can do about it,” Buffett said Saturday at his… – Continue reading
The true cost of the debt that China’s real estate developers peddled to eager international investors during a five-year property boom is now becoming clear. Having found themselves shut out of local bond and loan markets seven years ago, a band of developers began looking elsewhere for funds. First an… – Continue reading
Investment vehicles set up by Paulson & Co. and Highbridge Capital Management in tax-friendly Bermuda may be under threat from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. The IRS, in proposed rules published Thursday, said that the favorable treatment enjoyed by insurers under the tax code shouldn’t extend to companies that borrow… – Continue reading
(Bloomberg) — Wall Street banks and other financial firms should pay new fees to bankroll their own government oversight, according to a member of the top U.S. derivatives regulator. Sharon Y. Bowen, a Democrat on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said Congress should let the agency set fees on banks… – Continue reading
Legal problems have caused a serious strain on the credibility of Europe’s biggest bank HSBC Holdings plc (ADR) (NYSE:HSBC), which is currently up by 0.34% and trading at $44.69, has found itself at the center of a series of serious legal and possibly criminal tangles in recent years. Tax evasion,… – Continue reading
In Washington, they haul the bigwigs up to Capitol Hill for congressional hearings. Nobody is immune from scrutiny, whether the bosses at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan or Apple chief Tim Cook, compelled to defend his company’s “tax gimmickry” before a sardonic Carl Levin. In Westminster, the head of Google… – Continue reading
Giant financial institutions that benefitted from federal bailouts during the depths of the recession have repaid the American people’s largesse by hiding profits overseas to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. According to a report (pdf) commissioned by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), four big banks—Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Bank of… – Continue reading
Discuss issues related to applicability of minimum alternate tax and permanent establishment Foreign Investor on Saturday raised several tax-related issues with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley at a meeting organised by the National Stock Exchange (NSE). According to sources, issues regarding applicability of minimum alternate tax (MAT) and permanent establishment (PEs)… – Continue reading
Former JP Morgan Vice President Hernán Arbizu claimed that HSBC Argentina hired JP Morgan’s employees for “advise on evasion know-how.” He incriminated himself by saying that the company he worked for helped Argentinean economic groups to evade AFIP tax bureau controls. “The banks in Argentina are to blame for the… – Continue reading
Is corporate CEO pay really out of control? Well, consider Fleecing Uncle Sam, a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies and the Center for Effective Government. Of the 100 highest-paid CEOs in the US, the study finds, twenty-nine of them received more compensation than their companies paid in… – Continue reading
Seven of the biggest U.S. corporations received billions of dollars in tax refunds from the Internal Revenue Service, while dolling out an average of US$17.3 million to CEOs. While Congress is set to renew a slew of corporate tax breaks, new research published Tuesday found some of United States’ biggest… – Continue reading
(Reuters) – Regulators fined six major banks a total of $4.3 billion for failing to stop traders from trying to manipulate the foreign exchange market, following a yearlong global investigation. HSBC Holdings Plc, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Inc, UBS AG and Bank of… – Continue reading
