(Bloomberg) -– So how did the previously obscure term tax inversions become part of Washington parlance, fodder for the next presidential campaign and the issue that helped derail a U.S. Treasury nominee? Thank, or blame, depending on your perspective, cutting-edge tax lawyers, populist Democrats, a banana seller, a drugmaker, a… – Continue reading
Ireland: The Department of Finance will publish a consultation document Wednesday on the proposed ‘knowledge box’ patent tax regime that will be enacted in replacement of the Double Dutch tax avoidance scheme. Late last year Department officials hinted that a 5% rate was under discussion to match the Dutch rate…. – Continue reading
Severe council cuts could be reduced if multinational companies paid their fair share of tax, according to councillors. Labour Cllr Paul Merry, of Wanstead ward, and Cllr Varinder Singh-Bola, of Cranbrook ward, will put forward a motion at a council meeting this week calling on the authority to back the… – Continue reading
“The European Strategic Investment Plan is not the silver bullet. But if anyone has ideas to overcome the economic crisis with one stroke, stand up please,” said European Council President Donald Tusk in the debate on the results of the December European Council, which also covered tax avoidance and —… – Continue reading
Severe council cuts could be reduced if multinational companies paid their fair share of tax, according to councillors. Labour Cllr Paul Merry, of Wanstead ward, and Cllr Varinder Singh-Bola, of Cranbrook ward, will put forward a motion at a council meeting this week calling on the authority to back the… – Continue reading
New Delhi, Jan. 11: US President Barack Obama’s visit during Republic Day is expected to set the tone for closer engagements with India as the two nations look to boost bilateral trade to a targeted $500 billion. Obama is the first US President to not only attend the 26th January… – Continue reading
HMRC chief executive Lin Homer will face questions today before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) about the HSBC tax evasion scandal. The agenda of the scheduled meeting between Homer and the PAC has been overtaken by this week’s revelations about HSBC “assisting” over 7,000 UK nationals with their tax affairs…. – Continue reading
Buildings in Bedford Square used by the Ministry of Justice to hold tax tribunals belong to a company registered in a tax haven, says Private Eye. The discovery by the Eye means the UK government is going against its own rules which forbids it from transferring its assets offshore. In… – Continue reading
Business editor Duncan Foulkes quizzes three prominent Isle of Man businessmen on their thoughts ——————– Chris Eaton, Chief Executive Officer, The ILS Group There is no one major issue or initiative that faces the CSP and TSP sectors in 2015. Rather, they face more of a continued barrage of supra… – Continue reading
British Members of Parliament (MPs) have questioned the Government’s unilateral decision to push for the introduction of a Diverted Profits Tax (DPT) ahead of the completion of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD’s) work on base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS). In a debate held in Parliament on… – Continue reading
The Northern Ireland assembly would be given the power to set its own corporation tax rate from April 2017 if draft legislation published by the UK government is passed.09 Jan 2015 Corporate tax Tax UK Europe The Corporation Tax (Northern Ireland) Bill forms part of last month’s Stormont House Agreement… – Continue reading
The UK is proposing to introduce a unilateral, non-OECD co-ordinated anti-BEPS provision, referred to in the media as the “Google Tax”, with effect from 1 April 2015. The draft provision is very complex, and it will be time consuming to assess its potential impact on many common cross-border business structures…. – Continue reading
The Model 1B Intergovernmental Agreement signed between the Cayman Islands and the United States, sees those entities considered Financial Institutions (FI) that fall under FATCA, and have not registered with the IRS (to obtain a Global Intermediary Identification Number (GIIN), prior to 22 December 2014) now facing possible penalties (withholding)… – Continue reading
Q: Reader Neill Clift of Washington, saying he and his wife are British immigrants with U.K. pensions from when they worked in that country, wrote that FinCen 114 and IRS Form 8938 filing obligations feel like “traps set for us and expect additional traps to be set. Is there any… – Continue reading
Countries are competing to lower their tax rates to please the corporate giants, but the result is a massive collective loss of revenue. Only international coordination can wipe out the practice and defeat the negative influence of the Big Four accounting firms. Tax havens have long existed in the popular… – Continue reading
Controversial proposals for a law to make failing to declare offshore income a criminal offence seem to have been put on the backburner by The Treasury. Chancellor George Osborne announced the measure as part of a campaign to stamp out tax evasion as part of his Budget 2014. However, no… – Continue reading
Easy access drawdown rules for Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme (QROPS) come with a twist in the tail. The Treasury and HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) have confirmed QROPS are included in pension reforms that start from April 6, 2015 – which means retirement savers can access their QROPS fund… – Continue reading
COUNCILLORS will consider a call to join a national campaign against tax dodging at the next meeting of West Dorset District Council. Beaminster councillor Caroline Payne has submitted a notice of motion, which will be considered by members at the meeting on Thursday, January 8. The motion reads: “Please could… – Continue reading
The Price of Offshore Revisited was written by James Henry, a former chief economist at the consultancy McKinsey, for the Tax Justice Network. Tax expert and UK government adviser John Whiting said he was sceptical that the amount hidden was so large. Mr Whiting, tax policy director at the Chartered… – Continue reading
Businesses in the island’s vital financial services are gearing up for ‘substantial changes’ dealing with tax. That was one of the important messages to come out of a seminar organised by KPMG in the island. More than 200 experts attended the event which covered a series of changes in property… – Continue reading
The Cayman Islands Government today issued a report stating that it will continue its current method of providing beneficial ownership information to law enforcement, tax and regulatory authorities, as the method adheres to global standards. As explained in its Consultation Report on Maintenance of Legal and Beneficial Ownership Information, Government’s… – Continue reading
The conditions for becoming tax-resident and tax non-resident vary from country to country and depend on such things as length of stay, type of accommodation, location of family, and nationality. In most tax systems, presence of an individual in a country for 183 days or more in any 12-month period… – Continue reading
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has confirmed it has extended the lifetime of the Contractor Loan Settlement Opportunity (CLSO), a chance for contractors to own up to using an offshore tax avoidance scheme, until 30th June 2015. The settlement opportunity was originally meant to be open until January 2015. HMRC… – Continue reading
Currently, there is a tendency among those who take an interest in international tax developments to look to the future and try to guess how the international tax landscape will look in, say, three of four years, once countries begin to implement the OECD’s base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS)… – Continue reading
You may have heard in the news about Boris Johnson. He’s a flamboyant politician in the U.K. with an unruly mop of blonde hair. Recently, he made news by publicly saying he absolutely won’t pay his U.S. taxes. And yes, he is the mayor of London (the “real” London, where… – Continue reading
Interview: Outgoing Revenue Commissioners head is proud of her time leading the department The international tax environment is still too unsettled for one to predict how any changes taking place will affect the State’s attractiveness for foreign direct investment, according to outgoing chairwoman of the Revenue Commissioners Josephine Feehily. Feehily… – Continue reading
While the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) has focused worldwide attention on U.S. efforts to create a mandatory cross-border exchange of tax information, the enactment of FATCA was not an isolated occurrence. For more than a decade, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has been trying to… – Continue reading
The Budget pensions overhaul has hit the overseas pension market as new rules have been proposed which would remove the requirement for qualifying recognised overseas pension schemes (Qrops) to provide an income in retirement. Current rules around Qrops require that 70% of the amount transferred from a UK scheme has… – Continue reading
It’s self-assessment time again and although millions of taxpayers are honest and diligent in filing their returns, some are tempted to see what they can get away with not declaring or just cannot be bothered to submit a return on time. To help persuade anyone considering tax avoidance, HM Revenue… – Continue reading
Even Father Christmas should make sure he’s not inadvertently hiding anything from the US tax authorities, says Sophie Mazzier We all risk becoming a little preoccupied with counting at this time of year, don’t we? Actually, with both counting and deadlines. If it isn’t opening those 24 doors on the… – Continue reading
“The religion of socialism is the language of priorities,” said Nye Bevan, Labour saint and creator of the National Health Service. Now we have discovered the principal priority of one of his heirs, Ed Balls; taxing the homes of the rich. The shadow Chancellor, once so relaxed about the wealth… – Continue reading
The Luxembourg Government is to provide the European Commission with a list of the tax rulings issued by its tax authorities, along with a list of the beneficiaries of its concessionary tax regime for intellectual property (IP) income. Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel announced that the decision had been made… – Continue reading
KOTA KINABALU: For Malaysian property investors, especially in the London property market where some Malaysian developers, welcomed by Mayor Boris Johnson are active in projects, the United Kingdom Government will introduce new Capital Gains Tax (CGT) on the sale of UK residential property with effect from April 6, 2015. Following… – Continue reading
Two case studies on how one can use the exemption method or the credit route Homi Mistry December 20, 2014 Last Updated at 22:06 IST Imagine this. You are an Indian working for one of the IT majors and have been recently transferred to the UK. Six months into the… – Continue reading
The Qatari ruling family has been ordered to pay £38million in stamp duty They used an aggressive tax avoidance scheme to avoid the huge bill Country bought 13-acre site from the MoD for almost £1billion in 2007 By LOUISE ECCLES, BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT FOR THE DAILY MAIL PUBLISHED: 01:57 GMT, 20… – Continue reading
Rules relating to the payment of CGT by non-resident UK property owners will change in April and expats will be affected. Significantly sneaky draft legislation was published last week that will affect the way capital gains tax (CGT) is charged on the sale of UK property assets owed by expats. … – Continue reading
UBS Fund Services has had one of its strongest years in terms of winning new clients according to Monette Windsor (pictured), who heads up the Cayman Islands business. “We’ve invested heavily in our business development team this year and we’ve had to beef up our client onboarding team. We have 165… – Continue reading
Bravura Solutions reflects on a year of reform and looks forward to 2015. The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement last week didn’t deliver anything as revolutionary as the reforms announced in his March budget, but there were a few early Christmas crackers around ISA rules. After a monumental year, let’s look at… – Continue reading
Ambassadors are supposed to be diplomatic and suave. Yet even those of the diplomatic corp may occasionally get tongue-tied or utter ill-timed statements. Take U.S. Ambassador to Britain Matthew Barzun. He recently sounded not all that diplomatic about duty, compliance with law, and yes, even taxes. Lee Rigby was a… – Continue reading
After signing Model 1 inter-governmental agreements (IGA) with both the US and the UK in November 2013, in July 2014 the Cayman Islands government passed the necessary regulations to provide legal obligations with respect to US and UK FATCA as a matter of Cayman Islands law. Also in July 2014,… – Continue reading
Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the 21st Century” was a 2014 must-read for anyone interested in economics. But while his claim that income and wealth inequality has risen over recent decades to highs last seen before the start of the First World War was widely accepted, his policy prescriptions were not…. – Continue reading
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has protected up to £123 million in tax after a tax tribunal upheld a landmark ruling against a stamp duty land tax avoidance scheme. In July 2013, the HMRC won a case against Project Blue, which used the scheme. According to the HMRC the scheme… – Continue reading
In a blow to Bitcoin’s international presence, Australia has confirmed it will keep its controversial sales tax policy for certain Bitcoin transactions. Following the Australian Tax Office (ATO) issuing the initial legislation earlier this year, considerable community opposition arose, with domestic exchange Coinjar even forced to relocate to the UK… – Continue reading
The European Commission has announced that its ongoing inquiry into advance tax rulings will be expanded to cover all European Union member states. The Commission said on December 17 that it will ask member states to confirm whether they offer tax rulings. If they do, they will be requested to… – Continue reading
The UK Treasury has recovered a further £1.36bn from Iceland after its Landsbanki bank collapsed at the height of the financial crisis, forcing a taxpayer bailout for 230,000 savers in the UK. The British government through the Financial Services Compensation Scheme paid out £4.5bn after the collapse in October 2008… – Continue reading
There has been a recent surge in anti-tax inversion legislation discouraging companies attempting to shift corporate subsidiaries or headquarters to low-tax or tax-free countries. The issue was subjected to a great deal of publicity in April 2014 during the failed hostile takeover by Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) for AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN) when Pfizer… – Continue reading
The Cayman Islands Tax Information Authority (“Cayman TIA”) issued the second official version of the Cayman Islands FATCA Guidance Notes (the “Guidance Notes”) on 15 December 2014. A copy of the Industry Advisory and the Guidance Notes can be found through the following links: Industry Advisory Guidance Notes on the… – Continue reading
Coalition plan for stripping ‘cloak of secrecy’ from shell firms that leaves housing loophole slated by politicians and other critics Business minister Matthew Hancock unveiled ‘the first UK anti-corruption plan bringing action across the government’. Photograph: Jack Taylor/Barcroft Media Government plans to rip “the cloak of secrecy” from corrupt officials… – Continue reading
(CNS Business): Just days away from the 22 December deadline for many financial institutions to register with the US tax authorities to obtain their Global Intermediary Identification Number (GIIN) by 1 January 2015, the Cayman Islands Tax Information Authority has issued Version 2 of the FATCA Guidance Notes, which clarified… – Continue reading
Nigel Westman, of Clough and Company, says figures show tax evasion to be a bigger problem than tax avoidance Pressure is mounting to tackle tax evasion, a Kirklees accountant has warned. Nigel Westman, partner at Clough & Company in Cleckheaton, said that with tax dodgers allegedly costing the UK economy… – Continue reading
