After state aid inquiries into Amazon and McDonald’s, EU looks again at Luxembourg The European Commission may open a fresh investigation into tax rulings offered by Luxembourg as early as this week, as EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager continues her clampdown against corporate tax avoidance. Luxembourg is already awaiting a… – Continue reading
Malcolm Turnbull will push for a crackdown on multinational tax avoidance when he meets with world leaders at the G20 summit in China. But Labor have accused Mr Turnbull of not having a strong plan for confronting corporate tax avoidance at home, let alone abroad. The prime minister will arrive… – Continue reading
Trade relations between Singapore and Africa are set to deepen, with several agreements signed on Wednesday (Aug 24) at the fourth edition of the Africa Singapore Business Forum. These include the signing of the Avoidance of Double Taxation (DTA) with Ethiopia, a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) with Mozambique and an… – Continue reading
Assessing the Hong Kong – Russia Double Taxation Agreement: Another Step Towards Amplifying China’s Eurasian Connection The long-awaited Comprehensive Double Taxation Agreement (CDTA) between Hong Kong and Russia entered into force on July 29, 2016. The agreement will take effect on April 1, 2017 in Hong Kong and January… – Continue reading
Apple is a major part of why the United States is the world’s leading innovator on new technologies, particularly those involving telecommunications and computers. The company has over 66,000 domestic employees, and a large percentage of its customers are here — at least 40 percent, according to its latest annual… – Continue reading
In order to encourage foreign investment in Pakistan, the federal government has decided to provide facilities like Panama and Virgin Islands to foreign investors in Pakistan. According to documents available with Daily Times that government is going to introduce the companies’ bill 2016 in parliament soon according to which incumbent… – Continue reading
Despite Western opposition, the 134-member Group of 77 is continuing to pursue a longstanding proposal for an inter-governmental UN-affiliated tax body aimed at combating corporate tax dodging and curbing illicit financial flows, including money laundering and off-shore banking. The proposal has already been shot down twice by Western nations, first,… – Continue reading
Indonesia is demanding healthy, fair and transparent taxation practices at the recent G20 meeting in Chengdu, China, as the country struggles to widen its stubbornly narrow tax base. Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro intervened in the G20 High Level Tax Symposium by stating that the Indonesian government wanted fair and transparent… – Continue reading
At the recent G20 meeting in China, finance ministers stressed their support for greater tax transparency, calling for a report from the OECD on the implementation of automatic exchange of information before the end of the year, and stating that by July 2017 it wants a list of non-compliant jurisdictions… – Continue reading
MINISTER of Finance Lou Jiwei is calling for a taxation overhaul, saying innovative industries should also come under the purview of taxation to reflect a socially balanced economic growth. “Preferential tax policies are needed to boost development of new business sector, but fairness also matters,” Lou said. He was speaking… – Continue reading
The world’s major economies need to deepen cooperation on tax collection as companies seek to minimise the amount they pay to governments, finance ministers said Saturday. The issue has become controversial in many countries, with multinational firms from Google to Starbucks facing accusations of not contributing appropriately to the economies… – Continue reading
The Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) and China’s State Administration of Taxation in Beijing signed an additional protocol to the agreement to avoid double taxation and prevent tax evasion, officials said in Macau. The Additional Protocol, the third, according to the statement released by the Office of the Secretary for… – Continue reading
THAI MULTINATIONAL companies will be impacted on their cross-border business activities due to rapidly evolving tax laws in Europe and Asia-Pacific. For instance, the European Union (EU) achieved a groundbreaking result on June 20 by agreeing to a package of tax measures to combat corporate tax avoidance, which will be… – Continue reading
Regardless of whether you were surprised, overjoyed, dismayed or showed any other emotion (perhaps anger as you saw world markets tank), Brexit is here. Yes, we’re talking about the British exit from the European Union. We are not sure why the media coined the term “Brexit,” when it’s not only… – Continue reading
In what could be a significant development moving forward, UBS has provided the IRS with tax records and offshore accounts. UBS Group AG has come to an understanding with the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS), following a disagreement over client accounts in Singapore that had alleged tax evasion. The latest… – Continue reading
Montreal-based clothing maker Gildan earned $396 million in profit last year, but paid just over $6 million in cash taxes — a rate of about two per cent. Drug maker Valeant, based in nearby Laval, Que., booked $1.1 billion in profit in 2014 but paid only $110 million in tax…. – Continue reading
The Bank of Russia could sign a deal with China to set up an offshore banking center in June, the central bank’s first deputy governor said Friday. ST. PETERSBURG (Sputnik) — China is expected to pick a clearing bank for all yuan exchange operations in Russia in order to make… – Continue reading
The legislature’s Finance Committee yesterday approved an anti-tax evasion bill, which, if passed into law, would subject all companies registered overseas to the 17 percent corporate income tax. While supportive of the legislation, the committee voted 7-5 in favor of allowing the Cabinet to set the implementation date to avoid… – Continue reading
SANTIAGO, June 7 (Xinhua) — The Foreign Relations Committee of the Chilean Senate approved Monday legal proposals to eliminate double taxation with China and three other countries. Chile and China first signed an agreement over the matter on May 25, 2015 in Santiago. “China is our main trading partner and… – Continue reading
PBOC says move is aimed at smoothing out money market fluctuations China’s central bank has tightened the way it calculates reserve requirements for banks dealing in offshore yuan, saying on Friday that it wanted to increase flexibility in liquidity management for financial institutions and help smooth out fluctuations in money… – Continue reading
Asia Pacific The January – March edition of tax highlights for the Asia Pacific region highlights industry developments from Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia and Singapore including: Australia’s new tax system for Managed Investment Trusts The final stage of China’s B2V reform to be rolled out from… – Continue reading
In an ongoing effort to increase transparency by multinational enterprises (MNEs), India joined Canada, Iceland, Israel, New Zealand and the People’s Republic of China in becoming the 39thsignatory to the OECD ‘s Multilateral Competent Authority agreement for the automatic exchange of Country-by-Country reports (CbC MCAA). The Country-by-Country Reporting Agreement was… – Continue reading
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) recognizes the efforts of an increasing number of tax authorities to revise their tax policies in response to the international guidelines outlined in the G20 mandated Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Base Erosion Profit Shifting (BEPS) project. ICC urges national governments to… – Continue reading
The Panama Papers have recently drawn a great deal of investigation and public attention. Over 230,000 organizations and individuals were named as having set up offshore companies in tax haven like the British Virgin Islands, Panama, the Cayman Islands or the Bahamas. The public’s initial reaction was suspicion and anger toward… – Continue reading
Dubai: UAE-based multinationals will start to feel the impact of the OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) proposals that come into effect this year, a KPMG seminar on international tax developments has revealed. The BEPS proposals are focused on mitigating tax planning strategies that exploit gaps and mismatches in… – Continue reading
May 18 — Russia agreed to automatically share financial account information but passed up an opportunity the same day on a similar agreement to exchange company country-by-country reports. Russia signed the OECD’s common reporting standard (CRS) multilateral competent authority agreement May 12 at a meeting of tax administration heads in… – Continue reading
China is joining an international effort to tackle tax evasion, with plans to require multinationals to disclose more detailed information on their overseas affiliates, according to taxation consultants who advised the government on the new rules. The proposed regulations would make it more difficult for large companies to avoid taxes… – Continue reading
Revenue Minister Michael Woodhouse says the recent signing of the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on the Exchange of Country-by-Country Reports will help ensure large multinationals pay their fair share of tax by providing for increased sharing of information between revenue authorities. “Some large multinationals often have intricate financial arrangements in… – Continue reading
China said it has signed a multi-lateral agreement to share tax information on multinational companies, paving the way for it to join the fight on global tax avoidance. China signed the country-by-country tax reporting agreement, along with Canada, India, Iceland, Israel and New Zealand, during a meeting of the OECD… – Continue reading
Transfer Pricing in China 2016, the latest publication from China Briefing and Dezan Shira & Associates, is out now and available for purchase through the Asia Briefing Bookstore. Transfer pricing is a reality for any multinational company. As a result of a globalized economy and increasing complexity in business models,… – Continue reading
National Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier announced today that the Government of Canada has taken another step to stop the unfair practice of aggressive tax planning by signing an international agreement to implement stronger international reporting obligations for large multinational enterprises (MNEs). Thirty-one other jurisdictions have also signed the agreement. The… – Continue reading
Authorities answer OECD call to clamp down on corporate grey area of internal transfer pricing with proposal for tougher reporting standards China is mulling plans to tighten tax reporting requirements on multinationals operating in the country to help close a ¬massive global loophole. If the plan goes ahead, multinationals would… – Continue reading
In August 2015, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published the first edition of the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) Implementation Handbook to provide practical guidance to assist government officials in implementing the Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information in Tax Matters (AEOI). The AEOI and CRS… – Continue reading
For a month starting May 3, The Treasury of the Australian government will be accepting submissions from interested parties to comment on a newly-released discussion paper entitled ‘GST treatment of digital currency’ as part of the 2016-17 Budget. The Treasury says the government has realized that consumers are ‘double taxed’… – Continue reading
TOKYO — Do the rich and powerful really dodge taxes? They do. The “Panama Papers” – 11.5 million or so documents leaked from a Panama law firm specializing in tax shelters of various kinds and degrees of ingenuity – are shocking, however, not only to the naively innocent but to seasoned… – Continue reading
Unctad thinktank shows firms funnelled $221bn in 2015 through low-tax jurisdictions such as the Netherlands and tax havens in the Caribbean The UN has urged governments to stem the flow of funds to tax havens after companies funnelled $221bn (£152bn) into countries with low tax rates last year. The Netherlands… – Continue reading
Minutes after midnight on Saturday, Chen Sheng, a businessman from the southern city of Wenzhou, got a value-added tax (VAT) invoice after paying his bill at a hotel in Beijing. To his surprise, the invoice was the very first issued in China after the country replaced all business tax with… – Continue reading
Tax avoidance on a grand scale is nothing new – the US President Barak Obama has led the way in tackling the issue head on with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) since 2010. FATCA demands non-American financial institutions should hand over details about accounts and investments controlled by… – Continue reading
Premier Li Keqiang’s message to the country’s tax and financial authorities is crystal clear: The ongoing landmark tax reform must reduce burdens on all industries. One month before the May 1 deadline of a sweeping reform that seeks to replace China’s decadeslong business tax with a value-added tax, Li visited… – Continue reading
UNITED NATIONS, March 30 (Xinhua) — Stopping abuse of tax havens and promoting global tax cooperation will help create a fairer global society, Jeffrey Sachs, U.S. economist and UN special adviser on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) told reporters here Wednesday. Sachs made the statement at a press conference here… – Continue reading
In a search for financial records of a U.S. taxpayer who allegedly parked undeclared income offshore, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) are seeking to enforce a summons against a U.S. branch of a foreign bank for records held by a foreign branch of… – Continue reading
Authorities in China’s southeastern coastal province of Zhejiang cracked down on 115 cases of underground banking involving transactions totalling more than 900 billion yuan (HK$ 1.07 trillion) in 2015, state media reports. The success of the campaign underscored the efforts of Beijing to rein in illegal capital outflows, which hit… – Continue reading
The Finance Act 2015 introduced certain gateway conditions for the new exemption from UK withholding tax on interest payments for “qualifying private placements.” The Qualifying Private Placement Regulations 2015 setting out the detailed conditions for relief have now been made. While January 1, 2016 was appointed as the effective date,… – Continue reading
The Mauritius central bank said it has issued a banking licence to Bank of China , the first Chinese bank licensed to operate on the Indian Ocean island. Zhang Xiaoqing, who is leading a team setting up the Mauritius unit, said Bank of China wanted to provide financial services to… – Continue reading
The offshore yuan was set for the biggest two-day decline in six weeks after China’s central bank reduced the currency’s reference rate and policy makers were seen preparing a levy on foreign-exchange transactions. The monetary authority has drafted rules for a so-called Tobin tax in an effort to curb currency… – Continue reading
China’s chess game to seize control of the South China Sea may take an interesting turn if an influential businessman’s suggestion is followed and Beijing turns one of the disputed islands into its very own Cayman Islands-style offshore bank. The idea, as explained by The Washington Post, is to establish… – Continue reading
NEWARK, NEW JERSEY (BLOOMBERG) – The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) sought to make UBS Group turn over records on an account in Singapore held by a US citizen, setting up a showdown with the city-state over its bank-secrecy laws and potentially opening a new front against offshore tax evasion… – Continue reading
MAURITIUS has emerged as the biggest source of investment into Zimbabwe, accounting for projects worth $4,56 billion in the past five years. According to statistics released at an investment strategic meeting in Harare this week, a ZBCtv report indicated Mauritius was leading in terms of investments into the country while… – Continue reading
In Shanghai, Wolfgang Schäuble is urging his fellow G20 countries to put new rules to tackle tax avoidance into law. Back home, business leaders worry that German companies could be left exposed by the new rules if they are introduced unilaterally or go too far. The finance ministers of the… – Continue reading
1. New double tax treaty between Germany and the Netherlands: tax authorities now bear burden of proof regarding tax- evading or tax-avoiding arrangements A new Double Tax Treaty (DTT) has been in place between Germany and the Netherlands since 01 January 2016. Art. 23 of the DTT introduces an important… – Continue reading
