The C20 (Civil Society 20) is calling on G20 leaders to take action this weekend to improve the lives of the most vulnerable in society. C20 chair Tim Costello said the group was looking for an outcome on Sunday that clearly demonstrates G20 leaders’ commitment to fairness by taking concrete,… – Continue reading
Treasurer Joe Hockey has made tax avoidance by the world’s largest companies one of the cornerstone issues for discussion by the world’s most powerful leaders at the G20 summit in Brisbane this week – but it appears he still has some way to go to convince those closer to home… – Continue reading
Patent boxes allow firms to pay much lower taxes on profits from patented inventions, but critics say it gives UK too much of a fiscal advantage George Osborne’s move removes one of the potential flash points between the UK and Germany before this week’s G20 summit in Brisbane. Photograph: Pa… – Continue reading
Oxfam is urging world leaders at the G20 to crack down on tax havens, saying poorer countries are losing $100 billion a year through tax avoidance. It’s expected that an announcement will be made this week on a strategy for countries that are not members of the G20 or OECD… – Continue reading
Prime Minister Narendra Modi would attend the G-20 summit later this week where world leaders would come together for discussing issues including automatic exchange of tax information, taxation of large companies operating digitally, and a comprehensive strategy for strong, sustainable and balanced growth. Official sources said that the leaders will… – Continue reading
Those who live in glass houses do well not to throw stones, and Ireland’s predilection for such tax schemes as the “double Irish” probably makes it the last place to cast aspersions at Luxembourg’s creative approach to assisting what is now euphemistically called “tax planning”, once “tax avoidance”. Having sensibly… – Continue reading
India, keen to go ahead with a global tax pact to curb tax avoidance by companies, is expected to push for negotiations of some provisions of the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) agreement at the meeting of heads of states of G20 nations to be held in Brisbane… – Continue reading
A long-awaited free trade agreement between Australia and China could be signed soon, federal Trade Minister Andrew Robb says, despite negotiations still raging. Mr Robb, who is in China, said it was his “expectation” the agreement would be signed after the G20 leaders meeting of the world’s richest nations, which… – Continue reading
The days of multi-national companies avoiding tax could be numbered. The issue is on the G20 Summit’s Brisbane agenda next week and Trade Minister Andrew Robb believes all countries will work together to come up with a solution within the next 12 to 18 months. “A consequence of self interest… – Continue reading
NEW DELHI: India’s attempts to amend tax treaties with countries such as Mauritius may have drawn a blank so far, but its efforts are about to get a huge boost with several nations getting together to ramp up work on a global convention to plug treaty abuse. “Multilateral convention will… – Continue reading
Investigators for the Australian Tax Office and their lawyers were told by a judge last year that if they travelled to the Cayman Islands they could be locked up. A year earlier the Tax Office had suffered a setback. It lost a case in the Grand Court of the Cayman… – Continue reading
Minister confident as Luxembourg leaks overshadow finance ministers’ meeting in Brussels Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has said he expects the European Commission investigation into Ireland’s tax deal with Apple to be dropped, as he defended Ireland’s corporate tax regime yesterday in the wake of the Luxembourg leaks scandal. “My… – Continue reading
Up to 100 people have gathered in Brisbane for a rally to highlight the impacts of multinational tax avoidance, ahead of next week’s G20 leaders’ summit. Sitting in deck chairs, sipping mocktails and listening to the Beach Boys, the group recreated a tropical tax haven. They said they hoped “creative… – Continue reading
Ahead of next weekend’s G20 summit, the release of leaked documents showing Luxembourg’s facilitation of industrial scale tax avoidance by multinational corporations could not have been better timed. A cache of documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and released on Thursday, found hundreds of companies – including… – Continue reading
The hollowing out of tax collected for public purposes by rich and poor nations is not confined to technology and mining companies, according to a major leak of secret tax agreements covering more than 340 companies around the world. The documents, published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, include… – Continue reading
The global base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) rules, aimed at collecting a fair share of taxes from multinationals operating in different tax jurisdictions, are likely to be finalised by December 2015, a senior finance ministry official today said. “Work on BEPS is moving very fast. If things go on… – Continue reading
BEPS Action 10: Proposed modifications to Chapter VII of the Transfer Pricing Guidelines relating to low value-adding intra-group services On 3 November 2014, the OECD, as part of its work on the Action Plan to address Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (‘BEPS’), released a Discussion Draft in relation to Action… – Continue reading
Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan has rapidly abandoned several agreements with multinationals aimed at giving companies certainty about the tax they are required to pay in Australia in future years, after deeming they had misled and engaged in “aggressive tax planning”. Taxpayers can enter into a deal to lock in the… – Continue reading
Australia risks losing billions in tax revenues from resources sales to Asia if global efforts to stop multinational tax avoidance backfire, Wesfarmers chief executive Richard Goyder said. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development proposes to change the basis on which profits are taxed, as part of its global anti-avoidance… – Continue reading
The tax commissioner has rejected six agreements with multinationals in the past six months after deciding they had misled the Tax Office and engaged in “aggressive tax planning”. Multinationals can enter deals with the Tax Office to lock in the basis for pricing cross-border transactions, under so-called “advanced pricing agreements”,… – Continue reading
New Delhi: As it attempts to unearth black money stashed abroad, India today said the Grouping of 20 major economies(G20) of which it is a member is committed to a global response to deal with cross border tax avoidance and evasion. Tax evasion will be a key issue at G20’s… – Continue reading
G20 leaders are under pressure to go further in their efforts to crack down on tax avoidance after the revelation that thousands of companies, including several major Australian firms and multinationals operating in Australia, have legally avoided tax with complicated deals negotiated through Luxembourg. The chairman of a Senate inquiry… – Continue reading
Directors of the Australian government’s Future Fund as well as PricewaterhouseCoopers, Macquarie and AMP could be forced to face a Senate inquiry into tax avoidance following a global investigation into secret tax deals in Luxembourg. Thousands of leaked documents published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists on Thursday revealed… – Continue reading
NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 6: India has circulated a paper on the issue of taxation of global companies, an issue which will be raised at the forthcoming G-20 meeting in Brisbane later this month. Briefing newspersons on the meeting, Suresh Prabhu, the ‘Sherpa’ for Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G-20… – Continue reading
The Chinese government has been accused of blocking key anti-corruption measures ahead of the G20 Leaders Summit in Brisbane. Corruption monitor Transparency International says all the G20 nations except China have agreed on draft beneficial ownership principles seeking to improve the transparency of company ownership and control. Tranparency International’s Maggie… – Continue reading
Ernst & Young Solutions LLP, Singapore* It has been eight years since the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) first released its Circular on Transfer Pricing Guidelines. During that time, there have been significant changes in the international tax landscape. In Singapore, we have seen supplementary guidance from the IRAS… – Continue reading
CBC probe finds civil servants’ pensions invested via Luxembourg shell companies to avoid foreign tax Cabinet Minister Tony Clement has moved to distance the federal government from a Crown corporation’s decision to set up a complex arrangement of offshore companies as part of a tax “avoidance scheme” on pension investments… – Continue reading
Tax avoidance, or the use of legal arrangements to reduce tax, is rife. According to the Australian Tax Office (ATO), Australian companies in 2012 sent almost A$60 billion to related parties in tax havens. Singapore and Ireland topped the list of countries where businesses send their money. A recent report… – Continue reading
The Foreign Ministry has confirmed that President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo will attend the G20 Summit in Brisbane, Australia on Nov. 15 to 16, burying speculation about his attendance at the event. “After much deliberation, the president has decided to attend the G20 Summit, as he acknowledges the significance and strategic… – Continue reading
WASHINGTON, Nov 5 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Most of the world’s biggest companies get a failing grade for transparency and are far too secretive about how they operate, despite mounting pressure for business to stand firm against bribery, corruption and tax avoidance, a survey has found. Transparency International, the leading… – Continue reading
It was anticipated that with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US, uncertainty over FATCA implementation would come to an end. However, the Indian government is yet to make any announcements on the FATCA implementation after giving an in-principle approval to FATCA Inter Governmental Agreement (IGA) -Model -1, few… – Continue reading
Many leading economies are failing to stop their companies from spreading corruption around the world, NGO Transparency International has warned in its annual progress report on enforcement of the OECD anti-bribery convention. The UK is one of only four countries signed up that is actively investigating and prosecuting companies which… – Continue reading
ICC has expressed concern that the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Action Plan on combating Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (“BEPS”), mandated by the G20, may inadvertently incur severe collateral damage on compliant taxpaying companies of all sizes as a result of well-meaning measures undertaken unilaterally by states… – Continue reading
It is important that the Brisbane G20 Summit on Nov. 15–16 is a success. In an increasingly integrated global economy, effective forums for economic cooperation are needed. The 2008 global financial crisis was the catalyst for the G20 becoming a leaders’-level forum. The Washington, London, and Pittsburgh summits helped save… – Continue reading
Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first G20 meet in Australia this month, India is putting in place a cohesive strategy to prioritise issues of development and employment to the top of the agenda at the Summit. According to sources close to the development, the Prime Minister’s Office is keen… – Continue reading
PARIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–On September 2, 2014, under the aegis of the President of the Commercial Court of Paris, LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton (“LVMH”) and Hermès International (“Hermès”) entered into a settlement agreement (the “Settlement Agreement”) aimed at restoring a climate of positive relations between them. “Communiqué – Distribution exceptionnelle… – Continue reading
Global tax reform is on the agenda at the G20 in Brisbane to prevent aggressive tax avoidance, but developing countries are being excluded from decision-making Tax avoidance and evasion will be at the top of the agenda at the G20 Leaders’ Summit this month, when the leaders of many of… – Continue reading
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has spruiked Australia’s economic credentials ahead of the upcoming G20 summit in Brisbane. The summit from November 15-16 will see 4000 international delegates from 20 major economies converge on the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre for talks on economic growth. Calling the summit “the world’s most… – Continue reading
We are witnessing profound changes in the way that the world economy works. As a result of the growing pace and intensity of globalization and digitization, more and more economic processes have an international dimension. As a consequence, an increasing number of businesses are adapting their structures to domestic and… – Continue reading
The “Double Irish Dutch sandwich” sounds like something questionable you’d find on the menu at backpacker-run cafe. But it’s actually a notorious tax loophole in Ireland which allows huge multinational companies to get away with paying tiny amounts of tax through shifting money between multiple countries. For almost 30 years,… – Continue reading
People may not like paying tax. But what is even less popular is the thought they have no choice while others have much more control over their tax bills. Several high-profile companies make millions of pounds worth of sales in the UK. But a series of media exposes found that… – Continue reading
Financial institutions based in certain British Overseas Territories (BOTs) and Crown Dependencies (CDs) will be subject to stricter reporting requirements covering accounts held with them by UK resident non-UK domiciled taxpayers from 2016 if specific “carve outs” are not negotiated, an expert has said.31 Oct 2014 Private wealth tax Tax… – Continue reading
At the September 2014 convention of American labor unions, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont specifically urged taxation of wealth, asserting that, “We need a tax system which asks the billionaire class to pay its fair share of taxes and which reduces the obscene degree of wealth inequality in America.” The… – Continue reading
In one of the bluntest statements on the topic by any globalist thus far, controversial German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (shown) openly called for “global standards” and “global governance” in taxation to ensure that governments can continue extracting huge sums in taxes from the wealth-producing class in perpetuity. In an… – Continue reading
International tax rules have not kept pace with globalisation and the mismatches need to be fixed, a special conference has heard. A conference on tax reform at both national and international level took place in London yesterday. Experts agreed that tax systems across the world were outdated and extremely complicated…. – Continue reading
The Government continues to move slowly on global tax evasion and no action is likely for four to five years, according to a statement by Revenue Minister Todd McClay. Companies like Facebook and Google have been under fire around the world for shifting revenue and profits to different jurisdictions to… – Continue reading
The automatic exchange of information on financial accounts around the world is coming. More than fifty countries have committed to this at an international tax conference hosted by Federal Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble. The exchange of information now agreed will make it easier for fiscal authorities to obtain information about… – Continue reading
On a day when it furnished before the Supreme Court the full list of 627 Indians having accounts in foreign banks, the NDA government put off the signing of a crucial multilateral agreement aimed at facilitating access to financial information on taxpayers abroad. This has been prompted by the uncertainties… – Continue reading
BERLIN – We are witnessing profound changes in the way that the world economy works. As a result of the growing pace and intensity of globalization and digitization, more and more economic processes have an international dimension. As a consequence, an increasing number of businesses are adapting their structures to… – Continue reading
Revenue Minister Todd McClay today announced New Zealand’s timetable for participation in a global automatic exchange of information aimed at cracking down on tax evasion. G20 leaders announced the initiative in September 2013 – and in May 2014, New Zealand, along with all OECD countries, joined in the general declaration… – Continue reading
