On 28 March 2014, Luxembourg and the US signed an intergovernmental agreement (“IGA”) to implement automatic exchange of information in the context of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which gave birth to the Law of 24 July 2015 (“FATCA Law”). The purpose of the FATCA Law is to identify… – Continue reading
Gabriel Zucman, one of 3 French economists who in recent times have published extensive research on wealth and equality, in a book, ‘The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens,’ published this month, estimates that 8% of the world’s financial wealth — some US$7.6tn — is hidden in… – Continue reading
India must align domestic laws with international treaties A recent ruling of the Punjab & Haryana High Court (HC) in the Serco BPO case has once again underlined the need for consistency between tax policies and the jurisprudence that evolves around it, thus, leaving little to interpretational hazards. The HC,… – Continue reading
Automatic exchange of information for tax law enforcement purposes started first in Europe with the EU Savings Tax Directive, went international with the US Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act, and, from 2017, will go global with the recently-agreed Common Reporting Standard, the subject of this feature. Introduction To The Common… – Continue reading
Pretoria – The constant stream of new data requirements by the South African Revenue Service from South Africa’s major banks is costing the sector millions of rand and affecting the economy and banking costs. Tax heads at the banks raised questions during the recent Tax Indaba in Sandton about the… – Continue reading
On 20 October 2014 Ireland along with 50 other countries signed a multilateral competent authority agreement to automatically exchange certain information between tax authorities of signatory jurisdictions. The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) involves the collection of information in relation to financial accounts from financial institutions and the annual transmission of… – Continue reading
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to attend the UN Sustainable Development Summit as part of his second visit to the United States. INDIA IS likely to talk on the increased global efforts against tax avoidance and tax evasion at the United Nations later this month. Prime Minister Narendra Modi… – Continue reading
What constitutes an HNI is a tricky question? In general parlance, HNIs are understood to be the individuals with ultra-high networth with deep pockets having surplus investible funds. As per the Credit Suisse global wealth report, currently India is home to around 1,500 ultra-high networth individuals with wealth of at… – Continue reading
(Seychelles News Agency) – The Central Bank of Seychelles (CBS) says it is engaging with Barclays Bank Seychelles to ensure that clients have sufficient time to shift their deposits in their offshore bank accounts, following a recent decision by Barclays to discontinue its banking services for non-residents in foreign currencies…. – Continue reading
As discussed in the previous edition, due to current worldwide developments including the OECD’s move to curb tax Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS), tax policy is changing significantly. In Ghana for example, a Transfer Pricing Regulations was passed in 2012 which aimed to ensure that the tax base of… – Continue reading
A new wave of global tax compliance regulation is a game changer in the way asset owners and investment management companies report activities. Globalization of financial markets has made it increasingly simple to make, hold and manage investments outside an asset owner’s own tax domicile. A standard on automatic exchange… – Continue reading
The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is ranked third in the world for the number of financial institutions per-country that have now signed up to report under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). IRS figures report 8,525 Luxembourg firms have registered with the FATCA portal, and the total is surpassed… – Continue reading
Read the full newsletter. The OECD’s recent recommendations1 with respect to transfer pricing documentation and country-by-country reporting may have the most significant impact on multinational enterprises (“MNEs”) of all of the OECD’s BEPS proposals. The adoption of these recommendations, without consensus on effective dispute resolution, is likely to alter the… – Continue reading
On September 15, the Dutch government released its Budget 2016, containing the Tax Plan 2016 which includes certain amendments to Dutch tax law. The government will discuss the plans the coming weeks in parliament. Further to these discussions, some elements of the Tax Plan 2016 may change. Most proposals will… – Continue reading
EU committee set up to investigate aggressive tax planning concludes its report in weeks Lobbyists representing internet company Facebook could be banned from entering the European Parliament following a request by the parliament’s special committee on tax to revoke access to multinationals who refused to cooperate with the committee’s inquiries…. – Continue reading
The European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (CESI) has said that the proposed country-by-country reporting (CbCR) requirements are insufficient, and added that an extended CbCR, disclosure of tax rulings, and whistle-blower protection are key to ensuring corporate tax transparency. In its response to the public consultation on corporate tax transparency… – Continue reading
“Luxembourg is famous for two things: its steel industry and its rose cultivation industry”. This quote from an Italian guidebook of the 1930s was uttered by Luxembourg’s Finance Minister Pierre Gramegna at the annual conference of the Luxembourg Directors’ Association on 17 June 2015[1]. The economic outlook of the tiny… – Continue reading
Kenneth Leung (PC,F-Accountancy) explains what he – and the government – are doing to get Hong Kong off the EU’s undeserved blacklisting as a “non-cooperative tax jurisdiction”. Why has Hong Kong been placed on this list? There are ten European countries that have named Hong Kong as a tax haven…. – Continue reading
Note: This article was published by Bloomberg BNA in Tax Planning International European Tax Service Vol. 17 No. 7 July 2015 Introduction The recent LuxLeaks scandal has once again focused political attention on tax planning practices of multinationals (“MNEs”). It comes in the wake of the European Commission investigation of… – Continue reading
BARBADOS’ OFFSHORE FINANCIAL SERVICES SECTOR is again under threat. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), G20 and the European Union (EU) are acting in concert, armed with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and the Common Reporting Standard (CRS). Once implemented, the confidentiality which once protected financial… – Continue reading
Multinationals have come under fire yet again over their tax arrangements in some European countries, as the continent moves closer to a pan-European regime to combat tax avoidance. On Friday, European economy and finance ministers and central bankers (known as an ECOFIN meeting) gathered in Luxembourg to discuss what the… – Continue reading
PwC has acquired software company Ellis Financial Systems in a bid to more rapidly meet new tax information reporting required under such regimes as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). It has been re-named PwC Tax Information Reporting, and will operate from London. The acquisition represents one of many… – Continue reading
Indonesians hold $300 billion in Singapore; controversial tax amnesty on the cards. Indonesia’s finance minister Bambang Brodjonegoro told Euromoney earlier this year that tax collection falls way short of targets and must improve to provide funding for infrastructure and other projects It doesn’t take much for Indonesia’s government officials to… – Continue reading
Switzerland will allow stolen data acquired through official means to form the basis for a request for assistance but will help India only for post-2011 bank accounts, that too as long as Swiss courts don’t interfere Geneva: Switzerland’s proposed changes on treating stolen information have generated much optimism in India… – Continue reading
In a move that could add real bite to India’s war on black money, the Swiss Federal Council on Wednesday approved a bill that would allow the government to share “stolen data” with other countries. The council, Switzerland’s highest executive authority, said in a statement: “The Federal Council initiated the… – Continue reading
HMRC reintroduces Australian fund to Rops listEU member states are lobbying the European Commission to prevent it from disclosing information on tax rulings to a European Parliament probe, reports the EU Observer. EU economics commissioner Pierre Moscovici, in a letter sent Monday (31 August) to the head of the parliament’s… – Continue reading
Switzerland’s parliament will soon take up the issue of inking a crucial Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) agreement with India, a move that could help combat the menace of black money and erect a platform to enable the exchange of information between the two countries. “The domestic procedures regarding AEOI… – Continue reading
The Luxembourg tax authorities released a final version of an administrative circular and an updated administrative circular to implement provisions under the FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) regime concerning the automatic exchange of information between Luxembourg and the United States. An intergovernmental agreement (IGA), that follows the Model 1… – Continue reading
International worldwide transactions in Mexico face a weakness as a result of an old and outdated provision which disallows for income tax purposes, the deduction of payments made abroad on a prorated basis with other parties that are not subject to Mexican income tax, such as foreign residents with no… – Continue reading
Mumbai, Aug. 29 : The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked all banks and financial institutions to be prepared to implement the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). In a notification issued on Friday, the RBI said that India has signed an agreement with United States for improving international… – Continue reading
The Cayman Islands Department for International Tax Cooperation (DITC) has advised that it is in the final stages of preparing its FATCA data to be provided to the IRS. Information on US Reportable Account Notifications and 2014 Returns for US FATCA should now be completed and successfully submitted. It is… – Continue reading
India and Germany have agreed to resume negotiations on partial revision of double taxation avoidance agreement (DTAA), the government said on Friday. The two countries have agreed to explore possibilities of enhancing tax related information while continuing to share information on the basis of existing agreements, the ministry of finance… – Continue reading
Reevaluating reporting options and investmentsSmart choices and targeted investments today may help contain the approaching resource crunch and the long term costs of compliance FATCA has placed tax reporting front and center with management committees of financial institutions, but it represents just the tip of a potentially larger iceberg. Legislation… – Continue reading
After the leak of two major secret documents from HSBC’s Swiss private banking arm that revealed names of roughly 2,000 Indian account holders, the global bank itself has done it now. For the first time ever, HSBC Singapore shared a new list of 1,200 individuals all across the globe of… – Continue reading
Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) was enacted in 2010 by the Government of the United States of America (USA) (Govt. of US) with a view to combat tax evasion by U.S. citizens and residents through the use of offshore accounts. FATCA requires financial institutions globally to share information about… – Continue reading
At their meeting in Salzburg, Pierre Gramegna, Austrian Finance Minister Hans Jörg Schelling, Liechtenstein Prime Minister and Finance Minister Adrian Hasler, the Swiss Finance Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf and Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble employed in particular with international tax policy, the fight against tax optimization models overlooking the BEPS Initiative… – Continue reading
MINISTER OF INTERNATIONAL Business, Donville Inniss is optimistic that given Barbados’ and Italy’s continued efforts at strengthening bilateral relations, Barbados could soon be removed from Italy’s blacklist. He made this disclosure this morning during his brief remarks at the end of a signing of a Double Taxation Agreement (DTA) between… – Continue reading
The director of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, Pascal Saint-Amans, has praised The Bahamas for its “tremendous progress” in adopting Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) standards and paving the way for automatic exchange of information between the US and The… – Continue reading
On 17 June 2015, the European Commission launched a public consultation on further corporate tax transparency, which suggests a variety of tax transparency measures including country-by-country reporting (see here). The consultation is intended to gather feedback on which companies should offer more tax transparency and to whom. The deadline for… – Continue reading
On August 21, 2015 the Government of Liechtenstein issued a press release announcing that the Austrian Minister of Finance (Hans Jörg Schelling) has invited his German (Wolfang Schäuble), Swiss (Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf), Luxembourg (Pierre Gramegna) and Liechtenstein (Adrian Hasler) counterparts for the annual meeting of Ministers of Finance of the German… – Continue reading
American residents or nationals, citizens and green card holders – persons of interest – living in Jamaica are required to file US tax returns and must, by voluntary disclosure, fill out a form to disclose ‘foreign assets’. The filing of a Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts Report (FBAR) is an… – Continue reading
FOR MANY YEARS countries around the world have been engaging in the automatic exchange of information in order to tackle offshore tax evasion and other forms of non-compliance. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has been active in facilitating automatic exchange of information by creating the legal framework,… – Continue reading
IN THE LAST TEN YEARS the international community has tried to pressure Barbados into signing tax information exchange agreements. Successive administrations, however, have resisted by continuing to show preference for double taxation treaties. That has not stopped the pressure, and some would argue that in some ways the global players… – Continue reading
Financial Services Minister Hope Strachan said yesterday that the landscape of the country’s financial services industry would be strengthened as a result of the nation’s compliance with the tax information exchange agreements such as the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), saying that she was fairly satisfied that The… – Continue reading
A Protocol to Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement between India and Denmark that has entered into force on February 1, 2015, has been notified by Notification No. 45/2015/F No. 503/02/1998-FDI-I, to expand the scope of Exchange of Information (EOI) clause under Article 26 by substituting the same with a new Article… – Continue reading
There have not been too many applicants in the first month seeking to avail of the three-month long compliance window being offered by the government to come clean on unaccounted money in foreign shores, Justice (retd) MB Shah, who is heading the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on black money told… – Continue reading
In short… The current balance of competences between the EU and the UK on tax is quite intricate, with a tension between member states’ desire to determine their own tax systems and the EU-led aim of a level playing field. The EU most obviously influences member states’ indirect taxation (particularly… – Continue reading
On 16 June 2015 the Department of International Tax Cooperation (the “DITC“) of the Cayman Islands government announced that it was moving forward with the implementation of the OECD Common Reporting Standard (“CRS“), via the introduction of Cayman Islands domestic law, by October 2015. The CRS represents a significant step… – Continue reading
The first reporting cycle for the United States Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) kicked off with the 31 March deadline set by the US Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) for countries and territories such as Hong Kong that have a Model 2 Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA). Although the IRS has granted… – Continue reading
Seeking to allay fears, the government said full confidentiality will be maintained with regard to disclosures of unaccounted overseas wealth made under the black money compliance window and only those who do not take advantage of the scheme need to worry, reports PTI according to the Free Press Journal. Asking… – Continue reading
