The offshore yuan posted the biggest weekly gain since October as China’s central bank limited the currency’s supply and forced a narrowing of its discount to the mainland rate. The monetary authority repeatedly bought the currency in Hong Kong this week, sending interbank borrowing costs to an all-time high. Yuan… – Continue reading
Switzerland took an important step toward becoming a renminbi trading hub on Thursday with its inauguration of a new branch of the China Construction Bank, (CCB), one of the biggest financial institutions in the world. The Zurich branch of the CCB has been authorised by China’s central bank to operate… – Continue reading
The introduction of government measures to clamp down on tax avoidance could cost the UK development sector as much as £600m, according to a new study Plans to restrict the tax deductibility could harm investment in debt-reliant industries, the British Property Federation (BPF) warned. Despite supporting the initiative, the BPF… – Continue reading
The Netherlands will be at the forefront of efforts to combat multinationals’ tax avoidance, its finance minister has said. The comments come amid a dispute with the European Commission over his country’s tax treatment of Starbucks. The Commission, the EU’s executive arm, will propose a new set of binding rules… – Continue reading
The European Commission has ordered Belgium to recover €700 million from 35 large companies in back taxes in the EU executive’s biggest move yet to crack down on tax avoidance by multinationals. The Commission said Belgium’s “excess profit” tax system, whereby multinationals’ economies of scale can enable them to reduce… – Continue reading
Things just keep getting worse for Gene the Taxi King. A federal judge ruled Tuesday that New York taxi mogul Evgeny “Gene” Freidman illegally transferred more than $60 million in real estate assets into offshore trusts as a means of evading ex-lender Citibank. The ruling, which cited “numerous and glaring”… – Continue reading
Outgoing HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) chief executive Lin Homer has said it is ‘unlikely’ to pursue further prosecutions against individuals involved in alleged tax evasion at HSBC’s Swiss private bank. HSBC was accused of helping wealthy clients to evade tax in February 2015, when the BBC’s Panorama programme reported… – Continue reading
Documentary Evidence European Union lawmakers sitting on the TAXE committee investigating corporate tax evasion in Europe say they have become frustrated at changes to their mandate and the unwillingness of the European Commission to hand over documents for their investigation. The matter is all the more personal as Commission President… – Continue reading
ARLINGTON, Va., Jan. 14, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Bloomberg BNA today announced the publication of the Daily Tax Report’s 2016 Outlook on tax and accounting policy. Dozens of policy experts, along with current and former members of Congress, congressional staffers and federal agency officials provided insights on the year ahead regarding… – Continue reading
Professional landlords are using Airbnb and other home-sharing websites to avoid taxes and evade planning laws, according to Ufi Ibrahim, chief executive of the British Hospitality Association (BHA) Ibrahim provided evidence to the Business Innovation and Skills committee this week, where he argued that home-sharing websites like Airbnb are made… – Continue reading
McDonald’s faces another European regulatory headache after it was the subject of a competition complaint in Brussels. Three Italian consumer groups backed by a coalition of trade unions from across the continent, including the UK’s Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union, allege that the fast-food giant abuses its dominant market… – Continue reading
Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton wants to end what she calls “the Bermuda reinsurance loophole” as part of her tax program outlined Tuesday. In a factsheet entitled “Investing in America by Restoring Basic Fairness to Our Tax Code” posted on her campaign website, Ms. Clinton says that “high-income money managers… – Continue reading
Some €35mln in taxes have been imposed on undeclared deposits in 85 Swiss bank accounts included in the so-called Lagarde List, Finance Minister Harris Georgiades said on Tuesday, reports the Cyprus Mail. Speaking before the House Watchdog and Ethics Committees, the minister said the tax concerns 88 cases linked to… – Continue reading
Dominican Republic, in January 2016. The Dominican Republic could soon be part of an initiative of the OECD would force financial institutions of the country to exchange information on the accounts of their customers in other countries that are part of this project. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development… – Continue reading
The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) yesterday said there was a need to boost the nation’s internally generated revenue through higher consumption tax. The Director-General of LCCI, Mr Muda Yusuf, told newsmen in Lagos that emphasis on tax revenue generation should shift to consumption tax. He suggested that… – Continue reading
Reforms to corporate tax rules and fiscal transparency will be pursued by EU policy makers in 2016, the EU’s tax commissioner Pierre Moscovici has said. “We have a serious problem with tax avoidance and lack of transparency. Too many people have looked the other way,” Moscovici said. Moscovici told a… – 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
‘We’re not a tax haven, we have never been involved in any kind of tax malpractice’ – Michael Noonan, Irish Minister for Finance 5th October 2015 ‘Nobody is using Ireland as a tax haven’ – Minister for Agriculture, Simon Conveney, The UN’s Philip Aston says, ‘When lists of tax havens… – Continue reading
Tax evasion by online retailers is emerging as a serious and growing risk, Lin Homer, the outgoing chief executive of HM Revenue & Customs, warned on Wednesday. The illegal sales of tax-free goods over the internet was “a very big issue”, Ms Homer told members of the Commons public accounts… – Continue reading
Jan. 11 — The European Union is resuming efforts to create a common system for calculating the tax base of businesses operating in the EU, and aims to adopt the OECD BEPS package by the end of the Dutch EU presidency in June, a top official said. “This is the… – Continue reading
The KPMG member firm in India has prepared reports concerning the following developments (read more at the hyperlinks provided below). Income attributable to taxpayer’s foreign branches not taxable in India: The Bombay High Court held that income attributable to a taxpayer’s foreign branches, permanent establishments (PEs) outside India, is not… – Continue reading
Irish drug giant’s long-standing plan to acquire US rival – and lower its tax bill – is finally sealed thanks to beefed-up cash offer The drugs maker Shire yesterday clinched a $32bn (£22bn) takeover of US rival Baxalta after sweetening the deal with a bumper cash component despite fears such… – Continue reading
The battle between the People’s Bank of China and currency speculators has led borrowing costs for offshore yuan in Hong Kong to shoot up to 200 per cent Tuesday, with analysts saying the central bank is keen to defend the currency and fend off speculative attacks. The PBOC through several… – Continue reading
Tax inversions and corporate tax rate cuts would be huge for these stocks Certain politicians are decrying a tax move known as an “inversions,” which allow a U.S. company to merge with a foreign one with a more favorable tax rate. Yet, it’s the politicians who created the necessity for… – Continue reading
HONG KONG: In the space of about five years, the offshore market in Chinese yuan has gone from the poster child of Beijing’s financial market liberalisation to a battleground to regain control of the currency, spooking investors and raising questions about the future of the market. While investor appetite for… – Continue reading
Washington — JUST about every American chief executive has the same dream: to get out from under the corporate income tax. For many, that means lobbying Congress to change the tax code. But for a growing number, it also involves increasingly creative — and successful — tricks to avoid their… – Continue reading
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will be sitting in the House gallery as an honored guest at the State of the Union (SOTU) address tonight. By all rights, he be should sitting before a Congressional committee instead, answering for his company’s blatant tax avoidance. Microsoft is playing a game called “Global… – Continue reading
On 10 December 2015 the remaining changes to the income tax and the capital gains tax laws aiming to improve the tax system of Cyprus and make it more attractive to both the local and international business community were voted. The changes came into effect with their publication in the… – Continue reading
BRUSSELS – Three Italian consumer organizations have urged EU antitrust regulators to investigate McDonald’s (MCD.N) franchise system in Europe, a month after the opening of an EU inquiry into the U.S. fast food company’s tax deals with Luxembourg. Codacons, Movimento Difesa del Cittadino and Cittadinanzattiva filed their complaint with the… – Continue reading
‘We’re not a tax haven, we have never been involved in any kind of tax malpractice’ – Michael Noonan, Irish Minister for Finance 5th October 2015 If your top political figures need to constantly state that your country is not a tax haven, then the chances are it probably is… – Continue reading
U.S.-based multinational corporations are allowed to play by a different set of rules than small and domestic businesses or individuals when it comes to the tax code. Rather than paying their fair share, many multinational corporations use accounting tricks to pretend for tax purposes that a substantial portion of their… – Continue reading
AB InBev says it’s `disappointed’ and is assessing its options Vestager lashes out at `double non-taxation’ schemes BRUSSELS – The European Union ordered Belgium to recover about 700 million euros ($763 million) in illegal tax breaks given to at least 35 companies, including Anheuser-Busch InBev and BP, as regulators continued… – Continue reading
An Australian Taxation Office (ATO) report issued last month on “corporate tax transparency” showed that 1,539 of the country’s biggest firms had a combined turnover of $1.6 trillion but paid a total of only $39.9 billion in company tax—about 2.5 percent of the collective turnover. Five hundred and seventy-nine of… – Continue reading
Royce Gracie isn’t scheduled to fight at Bellator 149 until February, but he’s in a serious fight with the IRS over his taxes, including whether he rightfully claimed a tax credit for the poor. Remember the scrawny guy in a gi who smoked the field at UFC 1 and had… – Continue reading
few days before Christmas, in the full light of an Australian summer, the Australian tax commissioner published the tax details of 1,500 large corporate taxpayers which showed a staggering one-third of these companies paid no tax in 2014. This transparency measure was part of a wider package of ground-breaking legislation… – Continue reading
The European Union ordered Belgium to recover about 700 million euros ($762 million) in illegal tax breaks given to at least 35 companies, including Anheuser-Busch InBev NVand BP Plc, as regulators continued a crackdown on overly generous tax schemes throughout the 28-nation bloc. The European Commission told Belgium to recoup… – 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 woman who claims her banker husband has hidden millions of pounds of her divorce settlement in a tiger charity is set to launch a new legal battle – and says he cared so little for animals he wouldn’t even allow her to have house cats. Li Quan, a former… – Continue reading
Thai consumer goods group TCC Holding Co. Ltd has completed its acquisition of the Vietnamese operations of Metro for 655 million euros (US$704.1 million). TCC’s subsidiary TCC Land International Pte. Ltd. takes over Metro’s 19 stores and related real estate portfolio in Vietnam, the German company said in a press… – Continue reading
The mayhem over the yuan seems to have entangled DBS Group, Standard Chartered Bank and Deutsche Bank, which have all been suspended from conducting some of their businesses related to the Chinese currency, reports said yesterday. The temporary bans are likely a move by the Chinese central bank to clamp… – Continue reading
A Luxembourg trial into the causes of leaks and theft of confidential documents from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP that contributed to the so-called LuxLeaks scandal with the disclosure of thousands of pages of confidential tax rulings, will begin April 26. French journalist Edouard Perrin, Antoine Deltour, a former auditor at PwC in… – Continue reading
Several Slovak banks are already preparing for the new obligations arising from the agreement FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act). Because it had to make changes in particular in its information systems. “Following the agreement FATCA UniCredit Group has developed separate software for the purpose of fulfilling the obligations under… – Continue reading
SOUTH African Revenue Service (SARS) commissioner Tom Moyane has been instructed by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan to halt the implementation of his ambitious restructuring plans. The far-reaching restructuring project for the tax authority was one of the first initiatives undertaken by Mr Moyane following his appointment as commissioner in October… – Continue reading
Viacom Inc. was accused by one of its former executives of plotting to hide revenue from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” in a Netherlands entity to avoid taxes. The ex-vice president for financial planning at Viacom claims she was fired after opposing what she believed was an illegal tax dodge. Nataki… – Continue reading
The Department of Justice announced today that Union Bancaire Privée, UBP SA (UBP), reached a resolution under the department’s Swiss Bank Program. UBP will pay a penalty of more than $187 million. “Today’s agreement marks the final resolution with UBP, which acknowledges its role in conspiring with U.S. taxpayers to… – Continue reading
Ex-HSBC employee and whistle-blower Hervé Falciani has lashed out at the Swiss banking system for helping multinationals evade taxes through offshore schemes. He has also demanded that Switzerland recognise the role of whistle-blowers. “In order to survive the Swiss had developed mercenary activities on a grand scale. These are the… – Continue reading
UBP is the latest bank to reach a resolution under the Swiss Bank Program, launched in 2013, that allows Swiss banks to resolve potential criminal liabilities in the United States. UBP between 2008 and 2013 helped U.S. clients to open and maintain undeclared accounts in Switzerland and conceal assets and… – Continue reading
Twelfth night has come and gone, the Chistmas lights are out but John Lewis has reported a set of sales figures that sparkled. The department store believes it has outperformed its rivals, once again, online in particular. And yet it’s managing director told me the fight with one rival –… – 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
A Viacom whistleblower claims she was sacked by the media company for opposing its alleged plan to illegally avoid paying U.S. taxes on the international licensing rights to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, former vice president Nataki Williams said she was… – Continue reading
