The Australian Taxation Office has identified at least 36 Australian companies with related entities in Switzerland that may have engaged in tax evasion costing billions in possible tax revenue. According to internal communications between the ATO and the Department of Treasury the bulk of companies under investigation are based in… – Continue reading
HSBC is under fire, after a large cache of leaked bank files revealed that it helped clients evade taxes and conceal millions of dollars. The files, which cover the period 2005-07, amount to the biggest banking leak in history, shedding light on some 30,000 accounts holding almost $120bn. HSBC was… – Continue reading
Allowance of bilateral treaty for advanced pricing agreement should help mitigate issues around double taxation of income, feels brokerage house Morgan Stanley Moneycontrol Bureau Clarity around definition of export turnover and total turnover for computation of tax exemption in the Budget will help resolution of tax-related disputes, says brokerage house… – Continue reading
LONDON – The chief executive of Britain’s tax agency was questioned by politicians over leaked documents that describe how HSBC’s Swiss private banking arm helped clients, including politicians, rock stars and dealers of illicit diamonds, hide billions of dollars before 2007. Members of Parliament criticized Lin Homer, the chief of… – Continue reading
As tax chiefs are reeling over criticism of their failure to track down tax avoiders in Switzerland, they now face another scandal, and another whistleblower, over HSBC’s operation in the UK. Channel 4 news can reveal that HM Revenue and Customs are also sitting on yet another list of names… – Continue reading
According to the analysis of clandestine files belonging to British banking giant HSBC, it appears that the Swiss banking branch of the conglomerate played a pivotal role in assisting affluent depositors evade taxes on their mega million. A report released on Sunday, Feb 8, by a cadre of reporters representing… – Continue reading
NAMIBIANS who have Swiss bank accounts could face an Anti-Corruption Commission investigation if they evaded tax and money was transferred after the graft body was established. ACC director Paulus Noa told The Namibian yesterday that the ACC can only investigate the accounts if any Namibian holders of Swiss bank accounts… – Continue reading
Latin-American politicians Horacio Cartes (president of Paraguay), Álvaro Noboa (former president of Ecuador), and Alejandro Andrade (Venezuela’s ex-national treasurer) have one thing in common: they all possessed, until at least 2007, secret accounts with HSBC’s private Swiss bank. This according to the Swissleaks report published on Sunday, February 8, which… – Continue reading
NINETY nine Tanzanians own 114 million US dollars (over 200bn/-) stashed away in 286 bank accounts in just one bank in Switzerland, a cache of leaked documents from the Swiss arm of the HSBC bank shows. The findings follow a massive cache of leaked data that revealed how the Swiss… – Continue reading
WASHINGTON DC — An international banking giant, HSBC, made huge profits by allegedly engaging in shady deals of over $270 million with some Zimbabwean citizens seven years ago, in the process, disadvantaging the poor southern African nation of the much-needed foreign currency, documents in Studio 7’s possession have revealed. BY… – Continue reading
Contrary to public perception, a recent investigation into Swiss accounts at one of the world’s biggest banks suggests the collective wealth stashed away by high net worth Pakistani individuals is nowhere near the purported figure of hundreds of billions of dollars. In an investigative project dubbed ‘Swiss Leaks,’ the International… – Continue reading
Davidson Iriekpen with agency report New records obtained by the Paris-based Le Monde newspaper and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) have unveiled more details on the $182 million Halliburton bribery scandal in Nigeria that indicted several top government official, in the country who received the bribes, but for… – Continue reading
WELLINGTON: More than 100,000 Rich Kiwis have been caught with extra tax bills as the result of a huge file leak revealing the global super wealthy hid millions of dollars from tax authorities with the help of HSBC’s Swiss private bank. Inland Revenue investigated New Zealand links to the leaked… – Continue reading
UBS has today confirmed it is involved in a fresh investigation by American authorities after it allegedly sold products to help US citizens evade tax. The Swiss bank said it is being investigated for selling “bearer bonds” and other unregistered securities, which are banned in the US. Last month it… – Continue reading
By Eugene Okumu and Lola Okulo KENYA has been ranked 58th in a global list of countries with the most dollar deposits in Swiss banks, at a whopping Sh51.18 billion ($559.8 million). This is according to a leaked report titled Swiss Leaks, compiled by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists… – Continue reading
A Welsh Scout leader wanting to open a bank account was astonished when he was told he could only do so if he filled in a form for the United States tax authorities. Darren Stockton, who has run a Scout troop in Usk for six years, approached his local branch… – Continue reading
BEIJING – Li Xiaolin, daughter of former Chinese Premier Li Peng, known for his support of the bloody military crackdown on the 1989 democracy movement in Beijing, held close to $2.5 million in a secret HSBC account in Switzerland, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has found. The revelation,… – Continue reading
There are millions of Americans with unreported offshore bank and financial accounts. Under the new FATCA legislation, foreign financial institutions will soon be required to report account holders with ties to the United States. (FATCA is short for the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, a 2010 Obama initiative designed to… – Continue reading
MOSCOW – Former world tennis No. 1 Marat Safin has denied evading tax after a report linked him with Swiss bank accounts. The report, based on leaked documents from HSBC’s Swiss private bank, said Safin was linked to a client account which allegedly held up to $4.87 million in three… – Continue reading
A majority of CFOs at multinational corporations believe that publicity about their tax-planning strategies is having a negative impact on the reputation of their companies, according to a new poll. The survey, by the tax advisory firm Taxand, found that 77 percent of the CFOs polled said that exposure to… – Continue reading
Australia’s largest banking and finance institutions have defended their corporate tax affairs and have rejected claims the tax system is “fundamentally flawed”, in submissions to a Senate inquiry. On Monday an international investigation exposed how the Swiss arm of the HSBC bank helped wealthy clients dodge taxes around the world…. – Continue reading
The charitable foundation run by Hillary Clinton and her family has received as much as $81m from wealthy international donors who were clients of HSBC’s controversial Swiss bank. Leaked files from HSBC’s Swiss banking division reveal the identities of seven donors to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation with… – Continue reading
The Guardian’s very “word-heavy” front page is entirely taken up with details about what the paper calls “questionable practices” at a subsidiary of HSBC – one of the world’s largest banks. The paper says the financial institution’s private Swiss bank “helped wealthy customers dodge taxes and conceal millions of dollars… – Continue reading
GENEVA: HSBC’s Swiss banking arm, which according to leaked documents helped wealthy customers avoid millions in taxes in the past, insisted Monday it has since undergone a “radical transformation”. “HSBC’s Swiss Private Bank began a radical transformation in 2008 to prevent its services from being used to evade taxes or… – Continue reading
Racehorse trainer says matter is now resolved and company fully tax-compliant Irish racehorse trainer Aidan O’Brien (45) is among the Irish people who feature in the files from HSBC Private Banking in Geneva given to the Revenue Commissioners in 2010. The files indicate that the mail relating to his and… – Continue reading
International clients include those involved in arms trade and blood diamondsA huge cache of secret files from the Swiss branch of one of the world’s largest banks includes Irish people who made tax settlements with the Revenue Commissioners for more than €4.5 million. Other clients include arms dealers who sold… – Continue reading
French newspaper Le Monde published details on a scandalous report revealing a tax evasion scheme in the Swiss branch of HSBC on Sunday. Bulgaria is also said to have been a part of the illegal dealings with EUR 380,8 M and 74 bank customers. According to authorities, over EUR 180,6… – Continue reading
NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 9: The “door for dialogue” with India remains open despite the current “difficult environment” on the tax-related information sharing front, the Swiss Finance Ministry has said. In a just released annual report on International Financial and Tax Matters 2015, Switzerland has admitted that its relations with India… – Continue reading
The former ANZ Bank chairman Charles Goode held an account with HSBC’s Swiss private banking arm and asked to be identified only as “Mr Shaw” in his dealings with the bank, according to file notes in leaked bank documents. Goode – who maintains close ties to the Liberal party and… – Continue reading
More than 100 tax disputes involving Indian associates of US companies such as IBM and Microsoft are set to be settled out of court by April this year with the income tax department and the US Internal Revenue Service identifying disputes in the contract research, IT and software sectors for… – Continue reading
As countries share more information, opportunities to squirrel away cash abroad will continue to narrow AMONG the sins that have most angered the austerity-weary everywhere is the use of undeclared offshore accounts to stash the wealth of the rich. Greeks were particularly enraged when data stolen from Swiss banks showed… – Continue reading
The group that represents most of the ASX 200 on tax issues, the Corporate Tax Association, has emerged as a surprise advocate of increasing transparency about the amount of taxes big companies pay. The Corporate Tax Association’s submission to the inquiry into corporate tax avoidance said it had concerns about… – Continue reading
A New Tax on doing business in or through the UK The UK is on course to enact a new tax (the “DPT”) with extraterritorial scope which will apply to profits arising on or after 1 April 2015 and will be applied at a rate of 25% (the UK’s main… – Continue reading
Details have emerged this week that the company Samantha Cameron – the prime minister’s wife – works for is based in a tax haven. Smythson – a luxury leather goods retailer with a Royal Warrant from the Queen – is owned through a parent company in Luxembourg and connected to… – Continue reading
Offshore yuan bond issues are set to fall this year for the first time since the Hong Kong market began in 2007 as funding costs have become more expensive than in mainland China. The dim sum market, as the offshore yuan bond market is known, had expanded rapidly since its… – Continue reading
Technology giants Apple and Google have said in their submissions to the federal inquiry into corporate tax avoidance that they support international changes to global tax rules to stop profit shifting, but have warned of the risk of Australia acting alone, saying it would cost heavily in local jobs and… – Continue reading
A recent report detailing how Africa lost $US1-trillion in the last 50 years through illicit financial flows of money has raised questions about it’s abilities to curb fraud evasion and other means of corporate profit hiding. It has also sparked interest in holding multinational corporates, which are mainly responsible for… – Continue reading
Korean Gov’t to Tax Google, Facebook Like Domestic Companies orea is moving to impose taxes on foreign ICT giants such as Google, Apple, and Facebook. To this end, Ruling Saenuri Party lawmaker Hong Ji-man tabled revisions to the Income Tax Act and the Corporate Tax Act in December last year…. – Continue reading
Google has told the Australian parliament that it would prefer issues around taxation of multinational corporations to be dealt with by the G20 or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), rather than have individual countries attempt to go it alone. The Australian government is attempting to tackle profit… – Continue reading
Emirates Investment Bank yesterday said its total assets under management jumped 81 per cent last year as the economy boomed and the UAE’s safe haven status continued to attract funds from politically troubled countries in the Middle East and other parts of the world. Total assets under management increased to… – Continue reading
The government is planning to devolve power over the corporation tax rate to the Northern Ireland assembly. This bold and unprecedented move is intended to enable Northern Ireland to compete with the Irish Republic’s headline rate of 12.5%, and follows the agreement that Scotland should set its own rate for… – Continue reading
THE European Union (EU) will not pursue a probe of national programmes that create tax breaks for research and development, giving a boost to drug and technology companies that generate revenue from patents. The EU’s hands were tied by a 2008 decision to approve a “patent box” tax break in… – Continue reading
Some 776 American citizens or long-time residents renounced their status in the third quarter of 2014, according to the Treasury Department. If that trend continues, the U.S. will see more than 3,000 renunciations this year-a record. Why are so many Americans forfeiting their citizenship? In 2010, Congress passed the Foreign… – Continue reading
(Bloomberg) — The European Union is investigating Belgium’s tax deals with multinational corporations, potentially dragging dozens more companies into widening probes of sweetheart fiscal pacts handed out by national governments. Building on investigations of Apple Inc. in Ireland and Amazon.com Inc. in Luxembourg, the European Commission is targeting Belgium’s so-called… – Continue reading
(Reuters) – The European Commission is investigating a Belgian system allowing companies to reduce their tax bills significantly, it said on Tuesday, widening its inquiry into tax deals struck with multinationals across the European Union. The Commission, which rules on competition and subsidies in the European Union, said deductions granted… – Continue reading
(Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama will propose that U.S.-based companies pay a minimum 19 percent tax on their future foreign earnings, capturing profits that are now often beyond the government’s reach. Obama will also seek a 14 percent mandatory tax on about $2 trillion in stockpiled offshore profits, said two… – Continue reading
IRS threatens 30% withholding tax on non-compliant banks Dubai: Many people, including American citizens working in the Gulf state, received recently letters from their UAE-based banks asking them for more details and papers in compliance with American laws introduced by tax service. The move comes as many citizens of the… – Continue reading
A Sunday Mirror investigation has found Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Ebay and Starbucks has paid less than one per cent tax Six of the world’s biggest companies paid just 0.3 per cent of their UK earnings in corporation tax last year, a Sunday Mirror probe has found. We have examined… – Continue reading
Capital Gains tax and inheritance tax should be merged to prevent wealthy homeowners being taxed twice, IoD suggests Capital gains tax and inheritance tax should be merged to prevent wealthy homeowners being taxed twice, according to the Institute of Directors. Taxes raising less than £5billion a year should be merged… – Continue reading
MUMBAI: The hunt for black money stashed abroad is moving beyond Liechtenstein and Switzerland. Over the last fortnight, at least ten individuals — all from Mumbai and holding shares of companies in the Caribbean tax haven British Virgin Islands (BVI) — have been told by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to… – Continue reading
