THE Bahamas yesterday upgraded its tax information exchange agreement with Finland to the automatic variety, as it bids to meet global standards by September 2018. K P Turnquest, deputy prime minister, signed the Protocol to Amend the Tax Information Exchange Agreement between the Bahamas and Finland, with the latter’s ambassador… – Continue reading
Grenada’s Inland Revenue Division has completed a series of training exercises for its staff and the island’s financial institutions in preparation for the start of reporting under the US Financial Account Tax Compliance Act. Reporting by FIs under FATCA is governed by a November 2016 inter-governmental agreement between the US… – Continue reading
Three companies are ultimately owned in the Cayman and British Virgin islands, raising questions about the tax implications of profits generated by solar assets Adani has spread its use of offshore tax havens to its Australian solar projects, providing another avenue that could allow the wealthy Indian family behind the… – Continue reading
General Electric, Boston Scientific and other major Massachusetts-based companies are accused of keeping billions of dollars in offshore accounts to avoid taxation in 2016, according to a new report. In fact, the practice extends to 366 of the companies on the Fortune 500 list, according to the Massachusetts Public Interest… – Continue reading
Concerns have arisen over a temporary misalignment between the US country-by-country reporting regime and Italian legislation. Antonella Della Rovere and Federico Vincenti of Valente Associati GEB Partners explain. An agreement for the automatic exchange of country-by-country reports (CbCR) between Italy and the US (Agreement) came into effect on September 27… – Continue reading
The US IRS announced this week on its website that the US has entered into a bilateral competent authority agreement with Greece to exchange country-by-country reports on multinationals. The agreement between the IRS and the Greek Independent Authority for Public Revenue, signed September 27, puts into effect a 2015 deal… – Continue reading
A Federal Court judge has approved at least one court order that will require a British Columbia developer to turn over information to tax officials about people who bought and flipped condo units before or during construction. And several similar applications are under way, reflecting the federal government’s efforts to… – Continue reading
The Canadian Government has said that it will “act on what it has heard” during its 75-day consultation on the controversial reform of tax planning rules it says are being used by high-income individuals to lower their tax bills. The Government intends to prevent individuals from using private corporations in… – Continue reading
The recently proposed US tax reform package would benefit the rich but see some middle-class households face higher tax rises, says a new state-by-state analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). Released on October 4, the report found that the new framework would benefit the wealthiest taxpayers… – Continue reading
KUWAIT CITY, Oct 7: The Ministry of Finance has sent the first official list of names of Americans and Kuwaitis who also hold the US citizenship to the US Department of Revenue in compliance with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) based on agreement signed between the countries, reports… – Continue reading
BASSETERRE, St Kitts — Chief executive officer (CEO) of the St Kitts and Nevis Citizenship by Investment Unit (CIU), Les Khan, gave some insight into the current due diligence process of the citizenship by investment (CBI) programme, implemented after 2015. “Due diligence is an area that we take really seriously… – Continue reading
A memorandum of understanding between Greece and the United States that aims to fight tax evasion and money laundering was submitted to parliament on Friday by the finance ministry. The agreement will help with implementation of the US’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FACTA), which was enacted in 2014. As… – Continue reading
The Internal Revenue Service released guidance Wednesday to give tax relief to residents of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands who have evacuated the islands or were unable to return because of Hurricanes Irma or Maria. The relief extends the typical 14-day absence period to 117 days (starting Sept…. – Continue reading
SAN JOSE- Manuel A. Gonzalez Sanz, Costa Rica‘s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship, has met with Mohammed Sharaf Al Hashemi, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation for Economic and Commercial Affairs, at the ministry in capital San Jose. During the meeting, the UAE and Costa Rica signed… – Continue reading
Many tax avoidance schemes are not illegal. But just because it is not illegal does not mean it is not a form of abuse, fraud or corruption. Credit: Servaas van den Bosch/IPS KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 3 2017 (IPS) – Since the 1950s, there has been a popular dance called the… – Continue reading
On 30 September 2017, the Criminal Finances Act came into force. The Act, billed as the British response to the Panama Papers cyber breach scandal, aims to take the profit out of tax evasion. Under the Act, your business could be criminally liable for the actions of your employees. The… – Continue reading
The Federal Tax Service (FTS) removes the British Virgin Islands (BVI) from the black list of ‘tax havens’. This change will affect the interests of Russian owners of the local companies. Leaving BVI for another offshore may help them keep their secrets, but not forever. Removal of the BVI from… – Continue reading
GOP Leadership’s Proposal for a “Territorial Tax System” Would Encourage Corporations to Send Jobs Offshore and Avoid Paying Taxes. WASHINGTON – Today, 100 organizations sent a letter urging members of Congress to reject a proposal that would allow U.S. multinational corporations to pay little to nothing on their offshore profits…. – Continue reading
President Trump on Wednesday this week announced a sketchy Republican tax reform plan that covered just 9 pages and he proposed that the headline federal corporate rate should be cut from 35% to 20%. However, there is a risk to Ireland’s low 12.5% corporate tax advantage. The average rate of… – Continue reading
On 29 August 2017, Greenland officially joined the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes. Greenland thereby declared its commitment to implement both the international standard of exchange of information on request and the standard on automatic exchange of financial account information. On 8 February 2017… – Continue reading
At a Glance… On September 25, Governor Brown signed into law Senate Bill No. 813, which updated the California Voluntary Disclosure Program (VDP) to include out-of-state trusts with California beneficiaries and non-resident partners of out-of-state partnerships, and to allow the Franchise Tax Board (FTB) to waive the S Corporation or… – Continue reading
American CEOs stress urgent need for a tax code overhaul Major U.S. companies are advocating for changes in the tax system that they say will boost investment, jobs, and economic growth. Business leaders are urging Congress to pass a bill by the end of this year. Chief executives of large… – Continue reading
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union’s plans to increase taxes on digital firms risks undermining the bloc’s growth and stifle global efforts to find common solutions, U.S. companies operating in the EU said on Tuesday. Critics say online firms such as Google (GOOGL.O) or Facebook (FB.O) pay too little tax… – Continue reading
The Inter-American Center of Tax Administration (CIAT) has released a new statement summarizing the feedback from Latin American and Caribbean countries from ongoing discussions on countering base erosion and profit shifting. CIAT said it and a number of regional and international organizations have brought together policymakers from countries in the… – Continue reading
YEREVAN, September 25. /ARKA/. Until 2022 Armenia will conclude agreements on the exclusion of double taxation with 8 more countries and will pursue an agreement also with the United States to abolish double taxation, Armenian finance minister Vardan Aramyan said at a press conference on Monday. So far Armenia has… – Continue reading
Finance has no clue about number of people covered KUWAIT CITY, Sept 24: Unconfirmed statistics indicate there are about 13,000 Kuwaitis holding US citizenship and they have the option now to file bank and tax statements and benefit from the tax reconciliation program or make a formal request to the… – Continue reading
Tax inversions by US multinationals attempting to shift profits into lower tax jurisdictions could cost the US up to $12bn (£7.4bn) in lost corporate tax revenues by 2027, according to figures released by the US Congressional Budget Office There were 11 major corporate inversions from 2014-2015, although two significant inversions… – Continue reading
Letters calling for the elimination of FATCA, among other tax issues, will be presented to the White House in about two weeks’ time. A global political organisation with affiliation to the Republican Party has recently launched a petition and letter writing campaign in protest of “citizenship-based” taxation – partly in… – Continue reading
On September 13, the US Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee launched a hearing on improving the resolution process for taxpayer disputes and appeals with the Internal Revenue Service. The hearing is said to be the fourth in a series of attempts to reform and improve the IRS appeals process. “In… – Continue reading
Huge numbers of the 9 million US expats living around the world are fed up with the IRS and resent tax filing from their new homes. A poll suggests two-thirds of expats feel they should not have to tell the IRS about their finances if they do not live in… – Continue reading
Kazakhstan and the United States have signed a Model 1 FATCA Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA), which will enable the automatic exchange of financial information on each country’s resident taxpayers to support tax enforcement efforts. The agreement was signed in Astana on September 11, 2017. Kazakh Minister of Finance Bakhyt Sultanov emphasized… – Continue reading
Multinational corporations with profits held overseas would face a mandatory one-time tax as part of the planned Republican tax legislation, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday. “There will be a ‘deemed tax’ as a one-time charge,” Mnuchin said in an interview with Fox News at the Treasury. U.S. companies have… – Continue reading
PanARMENIAN.Net – The United States is not going to abolish double taxation with Armenia, U.S. ambassador to Armenia Richard M. Mills told reporters on Wednesday, September 13, Sputnik Armenia reports. According to Mills, the double taxation issue was raised by the Armenian government, and the United States has repeatedly noted… – Continue reading
Canada’s Revenue Minister has provided an update on the progress made by the Government in addressing tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance. The update concerns the recommendations on tackling tax avoidance and evasion made by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance (FINA) in October 2016, and the actions… – Continue reading
Anguilla’s ex-attorney general says UK government may fear exposing its role in Caribbean territories’ tax arrangements Aid offered by the British government to its hurricane-battered territories in the Caribbean has been dismissed as “derisory” by a former attorney general of one of the worst-hit islands. Rupert Jones, who completed a… – Continue reading
Canada has implemented the country-by-country reporting requirement for large multinational enterprises (MNEs) contained in the 2015 Final Report on Action 13 of the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Action Plan. Canada’s legislation is found in s. 233.8 of the Income Tax Act (Canada), and is supported by the… – Continue reading
Dept starts prosecution against 5 people with Rs 5k cr of unaccounted wealth in British Virgin Islands. The income-tax (I-T) department has established charges against five persons with unaccounted foreign assets of Rs 5,000 crore in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), a Caribbean tax haven. Investigations are on in more… – Continue reading
While at the beginning of the year (The Indian Express, March 16, 2017) the number of requests sent by India stood at 283 cases, it has now crossed 300. And while the number of replies received from among these 13 jurisdictions stood at 165, that figure has now crossed 240…. – Continue reading
On August 17, 2017, the Protocol amending the Convention for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fraud and Fiscal Evasion (“Tax Treaty”) between Belgium and Mexico was published in Mexico’s Official Journal of the Federation (Belgium publication pending). The Tax Treaty became effective in Belgium on August… – Continue reading
By 2016 the number of foreign trusts in New Zealand had more than tripled from 2008, reaching 10,697, according to New Zealand’s Inland Revenue Department (IRD). Those trusts were bringing around $50 million in professional fees to the country. At that time, the Panama Papers scandal revealed that New Zealand… – Continue reading
The Panamanian Government with the aim of improving the competitiveness of the international services industry in Panama and, at the same time, comply with international standards for the effective exchange of information, initiated in 2009 a decisive agenda for the selection of countries with whom tax agreements were going to… – Continue reading
Thirty-five Canadian business organizations have written to Finance Minister Bill Morneau to ask that he scrap proposals to crack down on the use of tax planning strategies by private corporations. The business groups have together formed the Coalition for Small Business Tax Fairness to oppose the Government’s proposals. Signatories of… – Continue reading
President Donald J. Trump is working to reform the tax system so that Americans are treated fairly and can keep more of their hard-earned money, and companies can bring jobs back to the United States. According to a news release from the administration, Trump will jumpstart America’s economic engine by… – Continue reading
The Federal Court of Canada has ruled that the Canadian Revenue Agency may not conduct further in-person interviews with representatives from a multinational corporation concerning its transfer pricing affairs, having already discussed earlier tax years. Cameco Corporation declined to produce approximately 25 personnel for oral interviews in relation to an… – Continue reading
Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Sushil Chandra on Wednesday said that the tax exchange agreements with other countries was resulting in information pouring in at a fast pace, thus there was no escaping for the multi-national companies (MNCs) from fair taxation. “We have got wide (tax) information from… – Continue reading
The Internal Revenue Service has extended the deadline for foreign financial institutions to have renewed their FFI Agreements, it has emerged. As reported, the original deadline was 31 July. However, accounting industry sources have flagged up the fact that the Internal Revenue Service is now stating that the deadline for… – Continue reading
A loophole may make it a good place for foreigners to keep cash. Some 65,000 Puerto Ricans left their bankrupt U.S. island commonwealth last year. A group of private bankers are moving the other way. They’re increasingly opening offshore banks known as International Financial Entities, which were created by a… – Continue reading
Bizlive cited a report from the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) as showing that the British Virgin Islands alone registered $1 billion worth of FDI in the first seven months of the year, raising its total accumulative investment capital to $21.4 billion, ranking fifth among countries and territories with the highest… – Continue reading
Banker’s Toolbox, Inc., the leader in Bank Secrecy Act anti-money laundering compliance solutions for financial institutions, announced today the launch of its Due Diligence Manager solution for Beneficial Ownership. This extension of the existing BAM+ platform delivers exciting and holistic features including a completely flexible question builder and automated periodic… – Continue reading
Indian income tax department started probe into Amitabh Bachchan’s overseas transactions in the light of his name in Panama Papers. The I-T department sent officer to the British Virgin Islands in order to collect his financial information. The authorities received criticism for lack of action against the Bollywood actor after… – Continue reading
