FinanceMalta, the Institute of Financial Services Practitioners, the Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry and the Gozo Business Chamber have welcomed the PANA Committee’s confirmation that the Maltese tax system is in line with current international and EU standards. Furthermore,according to the Committee, Malta has transposed EU rules and respects… – Continue reading
French finance minister Bruno Le Maire has urged countries to approve tougher sanctions against jurisdictions that do not adhere to standards in tax transparency in the wake of the Paradise Papers leak. Le Maire told reporters ahead of a meeting of European Union finance ministers in Brussels that such sanctions… – Continue reading
The European Union Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) has been talked about recently as a solution to the problem of an imperfect pan-EU corporate tax system, which allows large companies, particularly those with a digital presence, to detach profits from value-creation, and pay tax in low-tax jurisdictions. But what… – Continue reading
In this Tax Alert we will briefly highlight two topical Dutch tax matters very relevant to internationally active companies: the current status of the legislative proposal regarding Dutch dividend withholding tax rules for holding cooperatives and BVs/NVs and the announcement of the Dutch Ministry of Finance that the Dutch fiscal… – Continue reading
Work on an EU “blacklist” of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions is proceeding as planned, according to Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis. Dombrovskis made the comments following a meeting of EU finance ministers, at which the proposal was discussed. Dombrovskis said that finance ministers are calling for an agreement on the list to be… – Continue reading
The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) raised the possibility of granting a general tax amnesty to lure individuals and corporations with outstanding liabilities to settle their obligations without fear of being slapped with criminal charges. Following the tax settlement of cigarette-firm Mighty Corp. with the government, Budget Secretary Benjamin… – Continue reading
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has commended the Philippines for legal changes that brought the nation’s casinos within the scope of the country’s Anti-Money Laundering Act. “[The IMF] welcomes the recent amendment… to include casinos” under the act, the IMF executive board said in a press release issued on Monday,… – Continue reading
The Deputy Prime Minister yesterday revealed the Bahamas “may have to look at” implementing a low-rate corporate income tax, as global regulatory pressures force “hard decisions” upon it. K P Turnquest, while emphasising that such a move was a long way off, agreed that compliance with the OECD’s Base Erosion… – Continue reading
The EU Economic and Financial Affairs Council has adopted a Directive to create a new system to resolve double taxation disputes between EU Member States. This measure will afford taxpayers a transparent process with clear deadlines applicable to tax authorities involved to resolve cross-border double tax disputes within the EU…. – Continue reading
The Treasury says the Isle of Man has become one of the first countries to sign a new international treaty against tax avoidance. The Island joins Austria in agreeing to the OECD’s Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treasury Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting. The agreement aims… – Continue reading
CBDT issues final rules for Master File and Country-by-Country reporting NEW DELHI, NOV 1: The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has notified the final rules for maintaining and furnishing of transfer pricing documentation in the Master File and Country-by-Country (CbyC) report. This is largely in line with the draft… – Continue reading
The Chartered Institute of Taxation, the UK tax professionals representative body, has urged lawmakers globally to pause for thought on the direction being taken on the taxation of the digital economy. It is urging that any measures to improve the tax rules covering the digital economy must be developed and… – Continue reading
Introduction The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an economic organisation made up of 35 member countries, with the aim of encouraging economic progress and world trade. In 2015, the OECD developed the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project, made up of reports on 15 action plans,… – Continue reading
The OECD’s Anti Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Initiative (BEPS) significantly affects current transfer pricing regimes regarding intangibles, documentation and dispute resolution. Why is Transfer Pricing relevant for BEPS? To avoid base erosion and profit shifting of multinational companies, the OECD initiated an action plan consisting of 15 actions with… – Continue reading
In its latest report for the country, the International Monetary Fund has recommended that Croatia modernize its property tax system to enable the country to lower the burden of taxes that weigh more heavily on economic growth. It said a “modern, well-designed real estate tax that is based on objective… – Continue reading
The Hong Kong Government held a summit on October 23 to discuss new tax policies to boost the territory’s economy. Government officials recalled several recently announced taxation measures, including the two-tier profits tax rates regime and the enhanced deduction for research and development expenditure, and sought participants’ views on further… – Continue reading
Jude Scott, CEO of the Cayman Islands’ financial services promotion agency, Cayman Finance, has taken aim at a report labeling the territory as a “tax haven.” The report on international financial centers, issued by the non-profit US Public Interest Research Group and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, also… – Continue reading
Peru takes one step further in the eradication of tax avoidance and evasion after signing the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Deputy Director of the OECD‘s Centre for Tax Policy and Administration Grace Perez-Navarro affirmed these two crimes… – Continue reading
The Japanese National Tax Agency (NTA) has released guidance for taxpayers on the mutual agreement procedure (MAP), in line with the recommendations of the OECD’s Base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) Action 14 Final Report. The guidance is intended to supplement the Commissioner’s Directive on the Mutual Agreement Procedures, which… – Continue reading
Oman has become the latest country to agree to implement the base erosion and profit shifting minimum standards by signing up to the BEPS Inclusive Framework. In implementing the minimum standards, countries agree to remove harmful tax provisions in their domestic tax regimes, amend their tax treaty rules to prevent… – Continue reading
Inquiry to centre on George Osborne’s 2013 rule change that allows resident multinationals to shift income offshore The EU is to launch an investigation into a British government scheme that may help multinational firms pay less tax, the Guardian has learned. Margrethe Vestager, the EU competition commissioner, will announce on… – Continue reading
The Canadian Government is pressing ahead with plans to cut the small business tax rate. The Government has tabled a Notice of Ways and Means Motion in the House of Commons that proposes phased reductions in the small business tax rate. Under the changes, the rate will fall from 10.5… – Continue reading
Cutting Australia’s company tax rate is “now an urgent matter,” according to Treasurer Scott Morrison. In a speech to CEDA, Morrison said that with the UK, France, and the US each seeking to lower their corporate tax rate, Australian businesses risk “becoming stranded on an uncompetitive tax island if we… – Continue reading
The European Parliament’s PANA Committee has approved draft recommendations calling for increased scrutiny and regulation of emerging technologies, including virtual currencies and FinTech. The committee also approved a report delving into the findings of an 18-month probe into breaches of EU law in relation to money laundering, tax avoidance and… – Continue reading
Paul Chan Mo-po says the city must protect against unforeseen market changes at a tax forum that also featured a warning about the city’s international tax compliance There are no plans to cut Hong Kong’s corporate taxes across the board because the government needs to reserve funds to protect the… – Continue reading
The statement credited to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that the country may be operating one of the weakest tax regimes within sub Sahara Africa and beyond has sparked off a controversy of some sort with most Nigerians arguing to the contrary. Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf in this report examines the… – Continue reading
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
EU leaders have not yet made a clear choice about how to make sure digital companies pay their fair share of taxes. At an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday (19 October), they adopted a text that balances the wishes of two groups of countries – and can be interpreted… – Continue reading
BRATISLAVA, Oct.18 (Xinhua) — International information exchange system could help fight tax evasion, said President of Slovak Financial Administration Frantisek Imrecze at a press conference here on Wednesday. According to Imrecze, the information exchange system has been available to the Slovak Financial Administration since Sept. 30, the Slovak tax office… – Continue reading
ZURICH (Reuters) – Switzerland said on Wednesday it would start sharing information on the activities of multinationals in its territory with other countries in 2020, joining an international push to fight tax evasion. The new measures will force about 200 large companies in the low-tax haven to prepare country-by-country reports… – Continue reading
NZ’s IRD a global leader in shift to digital, unobtrusive tax administration, Ferguson says Oct. 18 (BusinessDesk) – The Inland Revenue Department is leading the charge in a global shift to digitally-based tax administration that’s unobtrusive and easy to use, says commissioner Naomi Ferguson. The New Zealand tax department is… – Continue reading
OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria has called for a collective effort on the design of temporary, short-term measures to tackle the international tax challenges of the digital economy. Speaking at the Group of Twenty (G-20) Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting held in Washington on October 13, Gurria said: “There… – Continue reading
Republic has implemented all four agreed standards under OECD’s tax/profit project An international body overseeing global tax practices has said that Singapore’s tax incentives meet the international standards on countering corporate tax avoidance. The Forum on Harmful Tax Practices (FHTP) said in a report yesterday that it had reviewed 164… – Continue reading
Exemptions make the mandatory disclosure regime a joke, says MEP Matt Carthy The Revenue Commissioners have received just 11 reports of potentially abusive tax-avoidance schemes since Ireland made it mandatory in early 2011 for transactions giving “aggressive” tax advantages to be disclosed to authorities. The disclosure by Minister for Finance… – 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
Imagine a world where Indian tax authorities can look at a document to see whether a multinational company is paying taxes commensurate to the profit it generates in India. The genesis of such a world lies in OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project. Back in 2015, the Organisation for… – Continue reading
(Bloomberg) — The Philippine government plans to target additional companies in its crackdown on tax evasion, said Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez “We are on a roll, and this is part of the president’s program to make our country more law abiding,” Dominguez told Bloomberg Television’s Kathleen Hays in an interview… – Continue reading
Denmark’s top lender, Danske Bank, played an “organised” role in a Russian money-laundering scam, French prosecutors have said. The Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris said the bank’s branch in Estonia helped to move €15 million of “money from organised fraud and tax evasion” in Russia into France and other… – Continue reading
Switzerland’s government has begun public consultation on the automatic exchange of client information with two major – and rival – financial centers in Asia. The alpine nation is expanding its network of countries with which it will begin exchanging client data next year. The move is does away with the… – Continue reading
THE Attorney General yesterday lamented that “riding behind our competitors” had caused “incalculable” damage to the financial services industry, accusing the former government of failing to act on tax information exchange changes. Carl Bethel QC, addressing the Senate, said the Christie administration had “done nothing’ for three years in relation… – 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
The Irish Government has published an updated version of its International Tax Strategy, which provides an overview of the steps taken to meet international standards and sets out the Government’s position on global reform efforts. In his foreword to the Tax Strategy paper, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said: “In Ireland… – Continue reading
An estimated $3.5 billion in revenue from large corporates and multinationals is at risk to the economy, but through audit activity this will reduce to $2.5 billion, according to the Australian Taxation Office. On Wednesday the agency is releasing the first tranche of its long-awaited highly anticipated “tax gap” figures,… – Continue reading
European Union finance ministers gave formal approval to legislation designed to dramatically reduce the 900-plus unresolved company cross-border double taxation disputes. The Oct. 10 approval for the EU Double Taxation Dispute Resolution Directivecomes amid skepticism from tax professionals that it has the resources to be effective. It includes mandatory binding… – Continue reading
New Delhi, October 11: The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) on Wednesday revealed that the net direct tax collection up to September 2017 is Rs. 3.86 lakh crore. The amount is 15.8% higher than the net collection for a corresponding period of last year. The CBDT informed that the… – Continue reading
Maltese MEP and former Prime Minister Alfred Sant said that small EU countries and islands use tax competition tools in order to compensate for major competitive disadvantages due to their limited endowments and distance from major markets. Along with Malta, even Ireland and Cyprus have notably expressed their great concerns… – 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 Irish government is inviting businesses and practitioners to provide feedback on its plans to update its international tax strategy, including how Ireland should incorporate the OECD’s transfer pricing guidelines into national law and implement the European Union’s anti-tax avoidance rules. The consultation, which runs until the end of January… – Continue reading
European Union plans for a new taxation system for digital companies, such as Skype and Amazon, both of which have European headquarters in Luxembourg, were discussed on Tuesday by EU finance ministers. A report from the European Commission in September said the effective average tax rate for a traditional international… – Continue reading
Cyprus should consider reinstating the immovably property tax to boost revenues, the International Monetary Fund has said. Taxpayers in Cyprus previously had to pay an annual tax linked to the total value of all immovable property owned. The tax was substantially reduced in 2016 and withdrawn completely this year. The… – Continue reading
