Uber is simply providing a taxi service and all its drivers must therefore register to pay goods and services tax, Australia’s Federal Court ruled. The Feb. 17 decision, which could yet be appealed to the full bench of the Federal Court, is “one step in the journey of the tax… – Continue reading
If the referendum passes, all public servants and elected officials in Ecuador will be barred from holding wealth in offshore accounts. As Ecuador heads to the polls Sunday to elect a new president and National Assembly, deciding the fate of President Rafael Correa’s 10-year Citizens’ Revolution, the small South American… – Continue reading
(Bloomberg Gadfly) — A referendum lost. Voters crying foul at cuts to public services. The threat of financial chaos and businesses sent packing. This isn’t Brexit Britain. It’s Switzerland. The country this weekend voted down a government plan to keep offering tasty tax breaks to multinational companies — while still… – Continue reading
A prominent QC yesterday backed calls for the Bahamas to switch to a ‘low tax’ business model, warning: “The survival of financial services is not an option.” Brian Moree QC, senior partner at McKinney, Bancroft & Hughes, said the Bahamas had to “figure out how to adjust its business model”… – Continue reading
Following Moody’s Investors Service affirmation of Indonesia’s sovereign credit rating at Baa3 with a stable outlook in January 2016, there has been renewed interest in the international bond market for Indonesian credits. This bulletin seeks to summarise the regulatory changes in Indonesia over the last 24 months as well as… – Continue reading
EU lawyers are preparing to mount a legal challenge against President Trump’s hugely controversial US border tax proposals in what could be the biggest case in World Trade Organisation history. Mr Trump’s proposed “border adjustment system” would see US imports subjected to tax, while export revenues exempted. The reforms have… – Continue reading
On 7 February 2017, the Minister of Finance of Ukraine and the US Ambassador to Ukraine signed a treaty on Ukraine’s performance of the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) (the Treaty). According to the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, the Treaty is based on the Model 1B Intergovernmental… – Continue reading
In the latest published data from the US Treasury Department and Federal Reserve Board in respect of November 2016, the value of Treasury Securities held by foreigners was $5.9tn with Japan’s holdings at $1.1tn and China at $1.0tn, followed by Ireland at $275bn. However, some further data show that the… – Continue reading
German banks support stricter beneficial ownership rules for companies and trusts, while the leading Scandinavian bank backed an offshore corporate economic substance test to help comply with EU laws against money laundering and tax evasion. Testifying before the European Parliament’s Panama Papers investigative committee, the Association of German Banks told… – Continue reading
After India’s banknote ban, private companies are using the country’s biometric database to bring financial services to millions For two years, Indian officials have been trawling the country, from city slums to unelectrified villages, zapping eyeballs, scanning fingerprints and taking photographs. Last month, Indian shoppers started to see the results…. – Continue reading
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) United States of America Implementation and Enforcement of the Inter-Governmental Agreement was passed in Parliament without opposition, making it mandatory for Antigua & Barbuda’s banks to provide the banking information of US citizens to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The Act requires local… – Continue reading
NEW YORK, Feb. 7, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — KPMG LLP, the U.S. audit, tax and advisory firm, has issued a new survey report on the international Common Reporting Standard (CRS), which reveals that financial institutions impacted by the regulations still have much work to do to meet with the initiative’s significant… – Continue reading
The Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) and state regulators have developed a self-assessment tool to help banks and financial institutions identify, monitor and communicate Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering (BSA/AML) risk. The BSA/AML Self-Assessment Tool is a spreadsheet intended to reduce uncertainty surrounding BSA/AML compliance and support more transparency within… – Continue reading
Multinationals owe responsibility to a wider group than their shareholders As the Apple tax case moves towards the European Union courts, €13 billion has been transferred to Ireland. The implications of the case will effect how multi-national companies implement taxes across Europe. has been accused of “bending the rules” in… – Continue reading
The Kuwait Ministry of Finance (MOF) has issued a ministerial resolution announcing that Deloitte & Touche, Al-Wazzan & Co in Kuwait has been certified with the ministry for the provision of Foreign Account Tax Compliance (FATCA) services. FATCA is a US legislation which aims to combat tax evasion by US… – Continue reading
The OECD made its end-November 2016 deadline to release the text of the multilateral treaty to give effect to the BEPS Actions which involve changes to tax treaties, see here. The 49 page treaty text, which is commonly referred to as the multilateral instrument or MLI, and 85 page explanatory… – Continue reading
Among other things, Union Budget 2017 will be remembered for two firsts – the introduction of secondary adjustment and thin capitalisation rules. Both are transfer pricing provisions which will have a far-reaching impact on corporates. Secondary Adjustment Since the concept of secondary adjustment is introduced for the first time in… – Continue reading
THE scope of the withholding tax — a tax imposed on non-residents for services rendered to Malaysia-based companies — has been widened. It is one of the major tax changes that came into effect on Jan 17 under the Finance Act 2017. Under the changes, non-residents must pay withholding tax… – Continue reading
The Caribbean Association of Banks (CAB) has expressed concern about the number of countries in the region which have not yet put in place inter-governmental agreements (IGAs) with the United States on the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). It said it was therefore renewing the call for Caribbean countries… – Continue reading
CROSS-border taxation in current times is poised for significant changes. Tax is key in foreign ventures. Absent tax strategies and foreign tax leakages would erode margins and return of investment. Although international tax-efficient strategies to mitigate capital gains tax (CGT), withholding tax (WHT) and the risk of creating a taxable… – Continue reading
Deutsche Bank will pay a $425 million fine in relation to a money-laundering scheme that regulators say moved $10 billion out of Russia, the New York State Department of Financial Services said Monday. The department said Deutsche was moving money out of Russia by using a stock “mirror trading” strategy,… – Continue reading
In a significant step, Mauritius will soon start automatically sharing of tax information with India and other countries as part of global efforts to curb multinational companies from profit shifting activities. The development also comes months after the island nation, long perceived to be a jurisdiction for alleged illegal fund… – Continue reading
What GAO Found In 2015, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) issued revised guidelines, including 15 actions to help reduce base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) of multinational enterprises (MNEs). One action focuses on transfer pricing guidance with the intent of aligning MNE profits with the location of… – Continue reading
On January 19, Greece and the United States signed an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) to facilitate compliance with the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) by financial institutions (FIs) in Greece. FATCA is intended to ensure that the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) obtains information on financial accounts held at… – Continue reading
The OECD is seeking feedback on a draft toolkit designed to assist developing countries in work on transfer pricing, which specifically addresses the ways developing countries can overcome a lack of data on ‘comparables’, or the market prices for goods and services transferred between members of multinational corporations The toolkit… – Continue reading
China’s banking regulator issued guidelines on Wednesday calling for the country’s financial institutions to strengthen their control and management of funding for outbound investment. The guidelines are the latest new rules on overseas investment as Beijing moves to clamp down on cross-border capital outflows and halt questionable investments. The China… – Continue reading
The most important task of the Finance Minister in the 2017-18 budget is to tame the “Indirect Transfer Provisions” monster born out of amendments to Section 9 of the Income Tax Act, 1961. In response to the Supreme Court’s judgement in the famous Vodafone case, the Finance Act, 2012 amended… – Continue reading
New guidelines aim to check tax evasion, ensure foreign firms are not taxed on their global income. New Delhi: The income-tax (I-T) department on Tuesday issued the final guidelines for place of effective management (PoEM) rules that seek to determine the residency status of a firm for calculating its tax liability. The… – Continue reading
Revenue appraisers began crosschecking the withholding tax returns from some companies to determine propriety of the pay disbursed to their foreign and local employees and consultants. In recent times, the submitted accounts on the pay-as-you-earn tax of some multinational companies (MNCs) and domestic firms have been under surveillance of the… – Continue reading
On October 3, 2016 the Federal Government proposed changes to the Income Tax Act (the “Act”) and administrative policies that will impact claiming the principal residence exemption. 1. All dispositions of principal residences must now be reported. Previously, the CRA did not require taxpayers to report the sale of a… – Continue reading
Bermuda – the world’s former “top tax haven” – has joined the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s fight against multinational profit shifting. Bermuda disputes it is a tax haven despite companies such as Apple and Google in the past being accused of using the British overseas territory to minimise… – Continue reading
Germany’s BDI industry group has come out against a government plan to unilaterally close so-called ‘patent box’ tax loopholes used by foreign companies to avoid paying full taxes on profits earned in Germany. The Association of German Industrialists, BDI, said Tuesday that the government’s unilateral move would send a negative… – Continue reading
Country’s reputation being exploited for ‘snow washing’ global money trails, experts warn Far from the palm-fringed beaches of the usual offshore tax havens, Canada has quietly become a go-to destination for international tax cheats eager to exploit the country’s twin benefits of a sterling reputation and rules that allow private… – Continue reading
Bahrain has signed an agreement to implement the US Foreign Account Taxpayer Compliance Act with the United States. FATCA, enacted by the US Congress in 2010, is intended to ensure that the US obtains information on accounts held abroad at foreign financial institutions (FFIs) by US persons. Failure by an… – Continue reading
MUMBAI: The Multilateral Instrument (MLI), a new global tax avoidance agreement, that is in the process of being signed by 100 countries, is now causing a lot of anxiety among foreign portfolio investors (FPIs). MLI is an agreement put out by OECD, the intergovernmental economic organisation, to stop Base Erosion… – Continue reading
Agency is increasingly turning to cutting-edge data analysis techniques to improve service and ‘compliance’ The Canada Revenue Agency is scrutinizing the Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and other social media posts of Canadians it suspects could be cheating on their taxes. That’s just one example of the agency’s increasing focus on… – Continue reading
Unknown to many Kenyans, Parliament’s passing of Finance Bill, 2016 that granted amnesty to Kenyan residents who have offshore incomes and assets in foreign banks had a very global agenda. The foreign income that is subject to amnesty is for the year ended December 31, 2016 and offers a waiver… – Continue reading
Tax experts believe significant sums of undeclared assets have been hoarded offshore by South African taxpayers but they might be reluctant to declare them under the special voluntary disclosure programme because of the way it deals with trusts. The Rates and Monetary Amounts and Amendment of Revenue Laws (Administration) Bill… – Continue reading
THERE was a time when a tax professional would confidently tell you that tax avoidance would not get you in trouble. You might be bending the rules a little to minimise your tax liability, but as long as you followed the letter of the law, you would be fine. On… – Continue reading
The government has quashed calls to look at extending the requirement to publish a public register of people with significant control to companies incorporated in the Crown dependencies and overseas territories, as part of a bid to increase tax transparency, saying new rules on the automatic exchange of information are… – Continue reading
Microsoft New Zealand is bracing for possible action from the taxman. The company said in its annual accounts that Inland Revenue was auditing payments charged to it by Microsoft companies overseas over the two years to June 2015. Microsoft NZ listed the Inland Revenue audit as a “contingent liability” for… – Continue reading
The Israel Tax Authority says Americans have provided information on 35,000 accounts held by Israelis in the U.S. and on an unspecified number of American accounts in Israel. The Israel Tax Authority said Monday it had begun passing on data on Israeli bank accounts held by American citizens and Green… – Continue reading
The Australian Taxation Office has its sights on a $30 billion-a-year natural gas export bonanza expected over the next few years, warning oil and gas giants not to follow the lead of the big miners and “inappropriately shift profits” by selling through tax haven Singapore. At the same time, it… – Continue reading
Coalition’s proposed diverted profits tax could capture billions in revenue from multinationals using profit-shifting practices, says Tax Justice Network One of the biggest critics of multinational tax avoidance has welcomed the Coalition’s proposed “Google tax”, saying a similar tax in the UK looks likely to increase corporate tax payments by… – Continue reading
Authorities unable to access leaked e-mails from Mossack Fonseca Panama is not cooperating with the Maltese tax authorities in their investigations into the Panama Papers leak, according to Finance Minister Edward Scicluna. Prof. Scicluna made his comments to Malta Today. Inland Revenue Commissioner Marvin Gaerty told this paper last year… – Continue reading
Portuguese income tax law provides for a 20% reduced rate and, in respect to income obtained abroad, a full tax exemption, for certain types of income derived by individuals having the status of Non-Habitual Portuguese Residents (NHPR). Any individual that in a certain year becomes tax resident in Portugal will… – Continue reading
The 2017 Budget Law introduced (starting from fiscal year 2017) favourable provisions for people wishing to become tax residents in Italy. It is aimed at wealthy individuals who wish to bring in new capital resources. The regime is inspired by the non-domiciled resident regime which is in force in the… – Continue reading
Move could be a worrying indicator of investment trends post-Brexit, post-Beps Snap, the company behind Snapchat, has opted to open its new new international headquarters in London, rather than Dublin, Amsterdam or Luxembourg, bucking a trend which for decades has seen US multinationals book their international sales in one of… – Continue reading
Authored by IFC Media Recent global events from the release of the Panama Papers to a series of high-profile inversions have given international tax regulators both rhetorical ammunition and public support to execute a global crackdown on multinational tax planning. The goal is to increase total taxes paid by global… – Continue reading
On 23 November 2016, the Swiss Federal Council adopted the dispatch on the Multilateral Agreement on the exchange of Country-by-Country Reports (CbCRs) and draft federal implementing legislation. The proposal is aimed at implementing the minimum standard of the G20 countries and the OECD to combat base erosion and profit shifting… – Continue reading
