The United States is through trying to needle the OECD’s base erosion and profit-shifting project with pinpricks. Last week, Robert Stack, U.S. Treasury deputy assistant secretary (international tax affairs), abandoned the subtle digs Treasury had been using to attack BEPS and flat-out said the United States is extremely disappointed in… – 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
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has welcomed a court ruling against an avoidance scheme that enabled two banks to avoid corporate income tax on interest on floating loan rate notes. In this type of loan, the interest rate (and therefore the installment amount) fluctuates according to the rise or fall… – Continue reading
Politically incendiary proposals will set sights on multinationals’ tax planning with EU states and 30 worst offending havens could be officially blacklisted Officials in Brussels will on Wednesday announce a series of measures designed to stamp out the toxic culture of secret, sweetheart tax deals for multinationals which prevails in… – Continue reading
AN alliance of SNP and rightwing Tory MPs failed last night to give Scotland full fiscal autonomy and introduce tax competition in the United Kingdom. SNP MPs agreed to back an amendment by Tory grandee Sir Edward Leigh, if he pushed it to a vote, which would have given Holyrood… – Continue reading
The amount of money paid to informants by HMRC in its attempts to crack down on tax evasion has leapt by more than 50% in a year to a record high of £605,000. The tax authorities are increasingly rewarding tip-offs in an attempt to recoup the tens of billions lost… – Continue reading
MUMBAI: With its subsidiary Cairn India facing Rs 20,495-crore tax notice, billionaire Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Group today said it is “frustrated” by the tax demand raised on it using retrospective legislation. The Income Tax Department had in March slapped a Rs 20,495 crore tax demand on Cairn India for failing… – Continue reading
Non-UK domiciliaries’ loans with certain offshore collateral Introduction HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) made an unexpected announcement on 4 August 2014 on the taxation of unremitted foreign income or gains used as collateral for a loan enjoyed in the UK. As a result, UK resident individuals who are not domiciled… – Continue reading
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has won £16 million in a tax avoidance case against Abbey National Treasury Services and Cater Allen International, both part of Santander Banking Group. The courts have decided against the companies’ attempts to avoid paying corporation tax on the interest on floating loan rate notes…. – Continue reading
Error meant that BBC Trust was not told in advance about creation of two companies designed to benefit from creative industry tax credits The BBC Trust has fired a warning shot over the bows of the corporation’s executives, calling on them to “have regard to the BBC’s reputation” following public… – Continue reading
Governments around the world could find themselves under-resourced when the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act deadline for collecting information on US clients arrives in September, one expert has said. Ellen Zimiles, managing director, head of global investigations at US firm Navigant, said governments will be handed an “unprecedented” amount of… – Continue reading
Dubai: The word offshore banking often evokes quite a number of unsavoury connotations. It’s associated with tax evasion, money laundering and high-level of secrecy, but the truth is that anyone can open an offshore bank account and it’s completely legal. Most expatriates set up a bank account offshore to protect… – Continue reading
Multinational firms said to be ‘cheating’ African countries out of billions of dollars that could be used for health care and education. G7 leaders Monday pledged to reform the international tax system by minimizing transfer pricing, according to Public Finance International. Transfer pricing involves internal transactions between a large company’s… – Continue reading
The Diverted Profits Tax (DPT), known by many as the “Google Tax”, is intended to stop large groups diverting profits from the UK by seeking to avoid creating a UK permanent establishment or using arrangements or entities which lack economic substance to exploit tax mismatches. Tax mismatches occur where intra-group… – Continue reading
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has updated its guidance on the Employment Allowance in light of media reports of an attempted avoidance scheme designed to exploit the allowance. Under the Employment Allowance, employers can reduce the amount of National Insurance contributions (NICs) they pay for their employees by up to… – Continue reading
The UK tax body, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), has completed a successful trial of Google Apps and will be rolling out the service to more of its staff throughout the year, reports The Register. HMRC has 70,000 staff, and as such will be Whitehall’s first mass deployment of… – Continue reading
An archaic rule in the UK tax system means non-domiciled individuals ( “non-doms”) can be born and raised in the UK and pay less tax than their UK citizen counterparts. A person inherits their domicile at birth. Non-dom status will be triggered where a person’s father or grandfather was born… – Continue reading
Most people do not believe big companies pay their fair share of tax, according research from energy giant SSE and ICAS, the Scottish accountancy institute. The YouGov study of 2000 adults found only a third of people think most big businesses in the UK pay their fair share of tax,… – Continue reading
FOCUS: Now that the first devolved Scottish taxes have come into force, the rest of the UK will be watching with interest to see how new tax authority Revenue Scotland manages and deals with avoidance risks. Much of this interest will be on how the new Scottish General Anti-Avoidance Rule… – Continue reading
In a year when technology deals are set to break records, U.K. targets are proving popular. About $20 billion of deals were struck for British technology companies in the last 12 months, almost double the amount spent a year earlier. U.S. buyers accounted for about half the acquisitions. They included… – Continue reading
Demands for greater transparency from business about their tax affairs have prompted more than half of all FTSE 100 companies to disclose information about their approach to taxation, compared with less than a third two years ago, reports the Financial Times. The rise in disclosures is a sign of the… – Continue reading
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has responded to the recent coverage regarding its approach to Reasonable Excuse claims for filing self-assessment tax returns late. The tax authority has reiterated its desire to use an increasing percentage of its resources on investigating major tax avoidance and evasion as opposed to penalising… – Continue reading
A lawyer claims there is a way for a ‘beneficial owner’ of a business to head off the “unwanted scrutiny” that the government’s central register of companies might bring them. James Austen of legal advisory Charles Russell Speechlys says “help is at hand” if his clients wish to avoid the… – Continue reading
Guardian obtains memo urging producer of promotional video for One Hyde Park in London to make several edits to ‘hugely improve tax profile’ A promotional video featuring the property tycoons behind London’s most expensive housing complex, One Hyde Park, was edited after an adviser warned it could raise “huge issues”… – Continue reading
George Osborne should use his budget to cut taxes. You can’t redistribute wealth unless you first create some. Simples Far be it from me to suggest the central paradox of leftism, but the recent election campaign seemed to highlight it better than ever. If you believe so passionately in the… – Continue reading
MiFID II – FCA Issues Discussion Paper on MiFID II Implementation Measures The FCA issued a discussion paper (DP15/3) on 26 March 2015, asking firms for their views on a range of MiFID II implementation measures, including on: The revised inducements standards. Receipt of commissions and other benefits by discretionary… – Continue reading
Tax doesn’t have to be taxing for US firm with inside track Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is the first major department to move to Google Apps, part of an apparent loosening of Microsoft’s stranglehold on the government’s software services. The department will join the Cabinet Office and Department… – Continue reading
Solicitors have a week to pay the tax they owe on undeclared income or face hefty penalties, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) warned today (4 June). Solicitors have until 9 June 2015 to tell HMRC about any undeclared income and pay the tax they owe. By taking this chance to… – Continue reading
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is reviewing the selling activity of thousands of online sellers who use websites such as Amazon, Etsy and eBay to earn a living, as part of a fresh crack down on tax evasion. According to The Telegraph, these websites are being forced to hand over… – Continue reading
A COMMON REPORTING STANDARD ACROSS THE WORLD The goalposts in international tax reporting are moving rapidly. In conjunction with the G20, the OECD developed the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) as a global standard for the automatic exchange of information. This was approved by the OECD Council on 15 July 2014… – Continue reading
Controversial recent changes to UK and EU law combined with parallel G8, G20 and OECD measures risk the beneficial owners of certain companies being subjected to unwanted public scrutiny. However, help is at hand for affected individuals. The political background Reacting to concerns about tax evasion, money laundering and the… – Continue reading
As Cayman finds itself at the heart of what may be the world’s biggest ever corruption scandal, following the arrest of local football boss, Jeffrey Webb, the premier has defended the jurisdiction in a statement from his office about the FIFA probe. Alden McLaughlin said that local law enforcement agencies… – Continue reading
Activists pressured Caffe Nero into banning milk from badger cull areas Now Coservative MPs have hit out against the coffee chain’s tax affairs Ian Liddell-Grainger said store ‘doesn’t give a stuff’ about British farmers Jacob Rees-Mogg branded bosses ‘spineless’ saying they must lift ban Furious MPs have branded Caffe Nero… – Continue reading
Former Public Accounts Committee Chair Margaret Hodge writes ahead of next week’s CPA UK Workshop in partnership on Parliamentary Action on Tax Transparency, Tax Evasion and Tax Avoidance A new global development agenda will be put in place by the UN this year, consisting of 17 high-level and ambitious goals… – Continue reading
LONDON, June 2 (Reuters) – An international campaign to stamp out corporate tax dodging will fail and G20 leading economies should instead adopt a global minimum tax rate for multinationals, a coalition of 10 charities and human rights bodies said. The G20 asked the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development… – Continue reading
BVI, 1 June 2015 – The Government of the Virgin Islands is advising all British Virgin Islands Reporting Financial Institutions that the FATCA deadlines for the United Kingdom and United States of America have been extended. Minister of Finance, Dr. the Honourable D. Orlando Smith, OBE made an Order under… – Continue reading
London: A UK Treasury minister has dismissed Brussels’ latest move to combat tax avoidance as “an answer still looking for a question”. David Gauke, financial secretary to the Treasury, said the UK remained sceptical about a proposal for a pan-European tax system, which was relaunched by the European Commission last… – Continue reading
David Gauke, Financial Secretary to the United Kingdom Treasury, has said that the newly elected Conservative Government will maintain a competitive corporate tax regime, although further reductions in the rate of UK corporate tax appear to be off the table. He also confirmed that the Government will continue to tackle… – Continue reading
A full and fascinating roundtable discussion based around the island’s place as an international finance centre was held at KPMG’s headquarters in Athol Street, Douglas. Around the table were David Karran, managing director, IQE, Simon Scott, managing director, Barclays Isle of Man, Andrew Thomas, chief executive, Isle of Man Enterprises… – Continue reading
Following on from revelations which emerged on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme last week, the recruitment industry has responded to reports of tax avoidance by one company. “I am very concerned to hear about such poor practice taking place, and I would like to emphasise that FCSA does not… – Continue reading
A sharp fall in the average length of custodial sentences given to criminal tax evaders is a clear signal that HM Revenue & Customs is increasingly targeting smaller cases, according to research by Pinsent Masons. Over the last four years, the average sentence length for these criminal tax evaders has… – Continue reading
KARACHI: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has, during its probe into the Axact scandal, unearthed seven offshore companies that were being run by Shoaib Shaikh. According to FIA sources, the agency during the forensic inspection of the data retrieved from Axact’s computers seized by the authorities earlier has ascertained that… – Continue reading
HSBC, the giant UK bank, is so slow it’s dangerous. The bank, hammered in 2012 for its lax anti-money-laundering safeguards, is still “under serious money-laundering and sanctions risk” because it hasn’t tightened up parts of its operation, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said Monday. Without top-flight safeguards, HSBC could still be… – Continue reading
The British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands have entered into agreements with the UK for automatic disclosure of information in respect of interests in financial accounts held by UK residents. Most UK residents are taxed on the “arising” basis meaning they are liable to pay UK tax on worldwide… – Continue reading
Barclays has launched an internal review into whether its accounts were used for corrupt payments by FIFA officials, a banking source told AFP on Sunday. Standard Chartered has also said it was investigating payments cited in the US indictment. UK-headquartered Barclays, Standard Chartered and HSBC were among more than a… – Continue reading
British Virgin Islands, Caymans and Turks & Caicos feature heavily in justice department indictment of senior football officials British overseas tax havens play a key role in what US authorities have called “rampant, systemic and deep-rooted” corruption in the world of football, analysis by the Observer reveals. The 164-page US… – Continue reading
Even 30 years would not suffice for the existing mechanisms to complete their investigation of all seven lists of suspected tax dodgers and money launderers that financial prosecutors have in their hands, accounting for billions of euros. The sum of the tax ID numbers (AFM) included on the lists –… – Continue reading
People who have filed late tax returns have been let off paying a £100 fine for missing the deadline, HM Revenue and Customs has confirmed. But the penalty has only been waived for individuals who provide a “reasonable” excuse for being late. The development was disclosed to the Daily Telegraph,… – Continue reading
Experts have challenged HM Revenue & Customs’ ability to ramp up revenue reclaimed from tax-avoidance schemes following the UK general election, with one suggesting it has already put the “nail in the coffin” with existing anti-avoidance measures. Despite Labour promising to bring in an additional £7.5bn from anti-avoidance measures, and… – Continue reading
Anderson Group, one of the recruitment industry’s most high-profile companies, is promoting an “aggressive” tax avoidance scheme which experts are calling “abusive”. The scheme works by exploiting the government’s Employment Allowance. The scam could deprive the Treasury of tens of millions of pounds of National Insurance payments. Anderson Group says… – Continue reading
