North East Labour MEP Paul Brannen on why European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker can crack the tax dodge problem The expression ‘poacher turned game keeper’ sprang to mind this week in the European Parliament as in meeting after meeting Jean-Claude Juncker’s suitability for the top job in the European Union… – Continue reading
In the African tax sphere, the trend remains for headline tax rates to continue to remain stable or decrease. Withholding tax rates have generally remained stable, although the experience of Dentons and our clients is that African tax authorities are requiring tax to be withheld from payments that have not… – Continue reading
A combination of lower corporation tax and increased aggression from HMRC has seen a significant rise in yields THE AMOUNT OF CORPORATION TAX HM Revenue & Customs collects from UK companies has risen 25% to £4bn, from £3.2bn, over the last 12 months. Increased activity in preventing tax avoidance by… – Continue reading
Tax avoidance is morally wrong even if it is legal, the majority of people surveyed in a poll for two leading charities said. Four in five of those asked said it is too easy for large companies to avoid paying tax in the UK while almost three-quarters said the next… – Continue reading
High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0092eb7c-788d-11e4-a33c-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz3KooWgw9y Multinational companies are braced for a tax crackdown after George Osborne vowed to use… – Continue reading
UK Prime Minister David Cameron has welcomed long-awaited recommendations from the Smith Commission on the devolution of additional tax powers to the Scottish Parliament. Cameron established the Commission in the wake of the “no” vote in September’s Scottish independence referendum. He sought to keep Scotland in the UK with promises… – Continue reading
WEALTHY foreigners who have sought tax exile in Switzerland could be tempted to find a new home elsewhere — many in Britain — if Swiss voters back a referendum today abolishing their special status. Polls suggest the move could be approved by a narrow margin, leaving the 5,600 beneficiaries of… – Continue reading
The lead article in The Sunday Times Business section today (authored by Simon Duke and David Smith) says that Britain is at the forefront of a crackdown on corporate tax avoidance – a blitz on tax avoidance by multinationals. The UK Treasury is planning a consultation on forcing multinationals like… – Continue reading
Lloyds Banking Group’s insurance arm Scottish Widows has put its offshore investment and tax planning business up for sale in the latest sign that dealmaking in the sector is heating up. Several parties have expressed an interest in the Isle of Man-based operation, which manages about £5bn of policyholders’ funds,… – Continue reading
Even though it was the French tax office that handed over encrypted information to AFIP head Ricardo Echegaray, the source of the revelations was former HSBC employee and whistleblower Hervé Falciani, a man responsible for giving the details of up to 130,000 Swiss bank accounts he suspected were linked with… – Continue reading
Pascal Soriot has said that controversial inversion tax deals, branded ‘unpatriotic’ by President Obama, are still taking place despite attempts to curb the practice AstraZeneca’s chief has said inversion deals used by US companies to escape high taxes at home are not over despite a major clampdown on the practice…. – Continue reading
PwC’s UK head of tax, Kevin Nicholson, who previously headed the firm’s entrepreneurs and private clients division, has been called to appear before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) As part of a larger inquiry into tax avoidance and related to the recent Lux-leaks scandal, where PwC Luxembourg was shown to… – Continue reading
Proposals by the Smith Commission to allow Scotland to vary income tax rates could lead to a rise in tax avoidance unless properly managed, according to a tax expert at Pinsent Masons, the international law firm. Karen Davidson, a legal director and tax specialist at Pinsent Masons says that any… – Continue reading
Latest updates as proposals for new devolution to Scotland unveiled in Edinburgh 14.00 We’re going to wrap it there for today. Thank you for following. 13.30 Labour are concerned about regional airports in the north of England, and tax competition from lower levels of air passenger duty in Scotland. Is… – Continue reading
Most People Can’t Afford To Move Home To Avoid Tax. But The Rich Can, And They Pay Most Tax. The Scots Should Be Careful Before Raising Taxes. You have to be very rich to move to Monaco to escape UK taxes but you need to be only fairly rich to… – Continue reading
I’m afraid to say we made the wrong choice as Ukip are beginning to prove time and time again their insignificance in Europe. The European Parliament took a vote of confidence today on the newly appointed Commission of Jean Claude Juncker. The vote, triggered by the Luxleaks tax avoidance revelations,… – Continue reading
Sol Campbell owns £25m house in London and Northumberland mansion He appeared on BBC2’s Daily Politics to explain mansion tax was unfair Ex-England footballer said proposed levy was a ‘tax on aspiration’ He said Labour should instead pursue companies who had avoided tax But MP Owen Smith said people had… – Continue reading
Public accounts committee will demand intricate details from Kevin Nicholson about tax avoiding schemes in Grand Duchy One of Britain’s top tax advisers at PricewaterhouseCoopers has been summoned to give evidence before MPs in the wake of revelations about controversial tax deals for PwC clients in Luxembourg. Kevin Nicholson, PwC… – Continue reading
Love him or hate him, you have to say that Boris Johnson makes a very good point about FATCA. Having been hit with a US tax bill due to his unwanted dual citizenship, Johnson – who is as British as they come in all fairness – says he will not… – Continue reading
European tax experts say that despite rule changes, Britain has one of the clearest systems Tax professionals view the Netherlands and the UK as the most attractive European countries in which to do business, according to a new survey. The two countries scored well on how simple their tax rules… – Continue reading
On 21 November, the States of Guernsey Income Tax (ITO) published bulletin 2014/1 to update the most recent iteration of the draft guidance notes issued jointly by the crown dependencies on 28 July 2014 regarding the implementation under domestic law of FATCA-based reporting. The bulletin provides clarification in response to… – Continue reading
A deal between Stryker Corp. (SYK) and Smith & Nephew Plc (SN/) makes as much sense now as it did six months ago. It just might be tougher to pull off. Stryker is considering structuring the takeover as a tax inversion, allowing the Kalamazoo, Michigan-based company to move its legal… – Continue reading
Meredith McBride in Hong Kong Though base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) took the front seat during meetings between global leaders on November 15 and 16 at the G20 forum, country leaders also expressed concern over the taxation of intellectual property (IP). Patent box regimes in particular were mentioned as… – Continue reading
The backlog of tax disputes waiting to be heard has reached a new record high with a particular surge in the number of high value cases lodged with the Upper Tribunal, according to Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com.25 Nov 2014 Tax Disputes and Investigations Tax Private wealth tax… – Continue reading
Should London’s Mayor Boris Johnson pay U.S. taxes and file FBARs? Born in New York, the iconic London mayor never gave up his U.S. citizenship. But rather than quietly paying U.S. taxes, Mr. Johnson in an NPR interview called it ‘outrageous’ to tax U.S. citizens on their global income. Mayor… – Continue reading
(CNS Business): Following the G20 summit in Brisbane last week questions remain over how much the latest talks on global tax transparency will impact Cayman and other offshore jurisdictions. Despite the bluster from international politicians in the build-up to the summit over clamping down on multinational corporate tax dodging, illicit… – Continue reading
UK resident non-domiciliaries (RNDs), who have offshore bank accounts and interests in non-UK structures, are currently not required to provide any information about those accounts/structures to HMRC, provided that they claim the remittance basis of taxation in the UK, those accounts do not hold assets which produce UK source income… – Continue reading
The backlog of tax disputes waiting to be heard has reached a new record high with a particular surge in the number of high value cases lodged with the Upper Tribunal, according to Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com.25 Nov 2014 Tax Disputes and Investigations Tax Private wealth tax… – Continue reading
The OECD has invited comments on a discussion draft on proposed changes to the OECD model tax convention to prevent tax treaty abuse. The OECD’s recent report on action 6 of the base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) action plan recognised that further work would be needed on the precise… – Continue reading
George Osborne is not going to want to do anything too controversial given the forthcoming General Election in May 2015, but does need to address some clear issues relating to public finances. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the current budget deficit is estimated at just under £100bn and… – Continue reading
HMRC’s controversial tactic of publishing a list of tax dodgers’ details has outed 77 individuals and businesses this year. How exactly did they make the list? HMRC’s list of people who dodge thousands of pounds of tax – and subsequently try to cover it up – could soon be bombarded… – Continue reading
Upper-tribunal appeals of UK tax rulings have jumped by a third, with backlogged tax disputes reaching a record high, according to law firm Pinsent Masons In the tax year 2013/14, 267 new upper-tribunal cases were lodged, an overall increase of 32% on the previous year, and almost four times as… – Continue reading
Boris Johnson has a point about his U.S. tax bill, but he should still cough up. The London mayor objects to the fact that his dual UK and U.S. citizenship means he has been issued with an American tax bill, and he says he won’t pay. Though many U.S. expats… – Continue reading
One of George Osborne’s flagship policies is set to be reformed in next week’s Autumn Statement following the resolution of a protracted spat with Germany over the controversial tax break. The so-called Patent Box took effect last year and allowed companies to pay lower tax bills on profits derived from… – Continue reading
SMALL Scottish businesses trading over the internet are being forced to turn down thousands of pounds of foreign business because of new European Union rules aimed at preventing tax avoidance by the likes of Amazon. From 1 January, VAT on what the EU deems “digital services” will have to be… – Continue reading
When FATCA was signed by Barack Obama in 2010, many commentators were quick to argue that such ‘breathtakingly extra-territorial’ provisions would never come to fruition. Fast-forward only a few years and those five letters, FATCA, have become etched in the minds of exasperated US taxpayers (many of whom are queuing… – Continue reading
Sit down before you read this: Internet companies pay more corporation tax than the European average, in some cases many times more. According to the European Commission the average ‘effective’ corporate tax rate in the European Union and EFTA is 12.9%; in 2012 Amazon had a whopping 78% in corporation… – Continue reading
HM Revenue & Customs has introduced “safeguards” to reduce the potential impact of its proposals to recover tax directly from debtors’ bank accounts. The plans, which are known as Direct Recovery of Debts (DRD), will allow the Revenue to recover cash directly from the bank accounts, building society accounts and… – Continue reading
Last week, HM Revenue & Customs published the latest edition of its Publishing Details of Deliberate Defaulters (PDDD) list, or, as it is also known, the A-Z of UK Tax Evasion. The list serves as a form of trophy cabinet for the Revenue, showcasing the individuals they have identified as… – Continue reading
Criticism of slow prosecution of tax avoidance schemes ignores HMRC’s impressive success in closing down the aggressive tax avoidance industry in recent years Tuesday’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report and the associated media drive, which accuses HMRC of being ‘unacceptably slow’ in pursuing tax avoidance schemes, is the latest in… – Continue reading
An increasing number of South Africans are sending substantial amounts of money offshore each year due to frequent travel, a greater appetite for offshore investing, business interests abroad and a growing trend to educating their children there. The UK has proven to be the popular choice due largely to the… – Continue reading
The UK’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has criticized what it says has been “unacceptably slow” action from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) against tax avoidance and has recommended that the Department be more transparent about its compliance yield estimates. In a new report, PAC said tax revenues are being placed… – Continue reading
UK and multinational enterprises are starting to consider (re)organising themselves under a UK holding company for their global operations, rather than using other traditional onshore holding company jurisdictions. This new trend is the result of a number of factors, which have moved the UK from an outside choice as an… – Continue reading
MPs have attacked the taxman for being too slow to crack down on controversial avoidance schemes used by celebrities and other high earners, resulting in millions of pounds being lost to the public purse. As much as £10 million may never be recoverable because of delays by Her Majesty’s Revenue… – Continue reading
LONDON: Britain’s tax collection agency is not doing enough to tackle multinational firms who use complex company structures to reduce their tax bills, a report by MPs said on Tuesday. Britain has sought to take a leading role in international efforts to reduce legal tax avoidance methods used by companies… – Continue reading
Should London’s Mayor pay U.S. taxes? How about filing FBARs and other forms that make it easy for the IRS to track his bank accounts? London’s Mayor Boris Johnson is English, but being born in New York means he’s American too. Turns out he never gave up his U.S. citizenship,… – Continue reading
On 11 November 2014, the UK and Germany made a joint announcement about a proposal they had developed to address some of the concerns raised over the OECD’s suggested approach to dealing with preferential IP tax regimes. These regimes will close to new entrants from June 2016, and will be… – Continue reading
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) should be allowed to offer settlements to resolve existing disputes over alleged tax avoidance, an expert has said.18 Nov 2014 Litigation & International Arbitration Enforcement UK Europe Tax disputes expert James Bullock of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said the measure would help… – Continue reading
LONDON (ShareCast) – HMRC issued 1,502 legal notices in the year to 31 March 2014 demanding information on tax investigation targets. This figure is up from 1,490 the previous year. City law firm RPC (NYSE: RES – news) announced on Monday that HMRC is increasingly requiring accountancy and legal firms… – Continue reading
Expats have a range of choices – so how do they find a safe home for their assets? The traditional use of offshore centres as a way of enabling better tax planning – and even tax evasion – has all but fallen away. An increasing desire for countries to share… – Continue reading
