Criminal fines imposed on corporations should not be tax deductible, but tax rebates could be claimed on illegally gained profits that a court has ordered a company to pay back, the Swiss government advised on Friday. The cabinet was responding to a parliamentary motion to clarify the situation in light of a… – Continue reading
Racing authorities have launched an investigation into allegations offshore bookmaker Betjack is failing to pay punters their winnings. The move comes as Betjack, based in tropical tax haven Vanuatu, gears up ahead of the spring racing carnival by hiring more sales staff for its Australian call centre, located on the… – Continue reading
China’s Bank of Communications is expected to settle in Luxembourg before the end of the year, marking the sixth Chinese bank to do so. The Luxemburger Wort first reported the bank, the fifth largest in China, had eyed up Luxembourg in January this year. This was confirmed on Tuesday by… – Continue reading
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DOWNTOWN — The Roanoke Building at 11 S. LaSalle St. will undergo an $88 million renovation to transform the office building into a Residence Inn by Marriott, thanks to a property tax incentive approved Thursday by the city. Aldermen voted Thursday to grant LaSalle Hotel Partners LLC a Class L Property… – Continue reading
Noble Energy and Jordan recently signed a nonbinding agreement for the sale of 8.5% of Leviathan’s gas over the course of 15 years, for as much as $15 billion. By Avi Bar-Eli | Sep. 9, 2014 | 2:47 AM The preliminary deal for the sale of gas to Jordan from… – Continue reading
Airbnb has joined other multinational tech companies by booking its Australian profits offshore through an Irish subsidiary. The move raises questions about how much local tax it pays and whether its rent-sharing model will run into trouble with regulators here. The private company, estimated to be worth $10 billion, has sought immunity from corporate… – Continue reading
UBS AG (UBSN) asked a Paris appeals court to overturn a $1.4 billion bail looming over the Swiss bank as France steps up a two-year-old tax evasion probe. The hearing dragged on for nearly three hours as the parties argued the case. The court said it would decide on the… – Continue reading
A multi-count indictment was unsealed this morning in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, against six individual defendants: Robert Bandfield, a U.S. citizen; Andrew Godfrey, a citizen of Belize; Kelvin Leach, a citizen of the Bahamas; Rohn Knowles, a citizen of the Bahamas; Brian De Wit, a citizen of Canada;… – Continue reading
According to the data obtained by investigators, the bank’s executives evaded paying taxes amounting to over 380 million rubles ($10.2 million) in 2011 MOSCOW, September 9. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian police have been conducting searches in the Moscow office of National Reserve Bank (NRB) belonging to businessman Alexander Lebedev for the first… – Continue reading
Medical device giant Medtronic Inc. leads all corporate inverters in the amount of offshore cash waiting to be tapped if their tax inversion deals are consummated. Medtronic is buying Covidien and moving to Dublin, and it has $13 billion of cash outside the United States, according to a report from the Financial Times,… – Continue reading
On Tuesday, the SEC and the Justice Department charged several companies claiming to be located on the same floor of an office building in Belize City with fraud and conspiracy. We may not have heard the last from Cynk Technology. On Tuesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department… – Continue reading
MONTREAL – The disclosure by Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. that it is under audit by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service is raising further doubts among tax specialists about the future of the Quebec-based drug company’s tax strategies. Valeant estimates it has achieved US$2.5-billion in tax and other “corporate structure” savings… – Continue reading
US companies can end up sitting on vast piles of untappable cash, held overseas for tax purposes. Success for the iPhone 6 would make things worse If, as expected, the launch of the new iPhone and Apple’s iWatch health monitor leads to record sales, more money than ever will pour… – Continue reading
High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. C Three US companies seeking to use controversial takeovers to cut their US tax bills hold at least… – Continue reading
The verdict serves as reference for invoking treaty abuse provisions in the absence of General Anti-Avoidance Rules Mukesh Butani September 7, 2014 Last Updated at 22:33 IST In a ruling demonstrating wise judicial discipline, the Delhi High Court (HC) recently upheld non-taxability of sale of shares in an offshore company… – Continue reading
SUMMARY As per estimates, about 1-2% of the existing industry AUM of Rs 10 lakh cr comes from Canada and US-based investors. Indian AMCs have to register with the US SEC to market their funds in the US and follow SEC regulations to take fresh investments from the US citizens… – Continue reading
Dutch bank ABN AMRO has criticized a new report, The Fair Banking Guide, published by the Dutch BankWiser (EBW) after an investigation into international tax avoidance in the Dutch banking sector. “ABN AMRO considers the report to be of such poor quality that it does not wish to react to its… – Continue reading
Seven Dutch financial institutions may be involved in evading taxes and are ‘extremely vague’ about what they do to ensure this does not happen, the Dutch Fair Bank Guide said on Wednesday. ABN Amro, Aegon, Delta Lloyd, ING, NIBC, Rabobank and Van Lanschot emerge as potential tax avoiders in research… – Continue reading
On August 26, Burger King announced that it entered into an agreement to acquire Tim Hortons, Inc., the Canadian coffee-and-doughnut chain, in a transaction that will be structured as an “inversion” (i.e., Burger King will become a subsidiary of a Canadian parent corporation). The deal is expected to close in 2014… – Continue reading
Amazon has been accused of violating Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) laws in India by setting up business in the country. Seattle based Amazon.com, operating its business from Bangalore, is in confrontation with the Karnataka government’s commercial taxes department. While, the department argued that Amazon.com has violated FDI, regulations by making… – Continue reading
Another example of the “Too Big to Jail” doctrine: International tax evasion and fraud organised by UBS, Switzerland’s biggest bank. UBS, which had to be saved from failure in October 2008 by massive injections of Swiss public money, was involved in the LIBOR manipulation scandal, the currency markets manipulation scandal… – Continue reading
Years before Burger King sized up a Canadian headquarters in a hunt for lower taxes, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike McFadden’s investment firm was involved in a merger that moved an American pharmaceutical company to Ireland and significantly dropped its tax rate. McFadden’s Minnesota-based firm made more than $11 million,… – Continue reading
Microsoft is avoiding paying billions in taxes—and it’s not the only one. a subsidiary of a foreign company, so the firm has not technically engaged in the so-called “inversion” scheme that President Obama and Democrats have lately been criticizing. However, according to a 2012 U.S. Senate investigation, the company has… – Continue reading
The Obama administration is employing an ObamaCare contractor that was once based in the tax haven of Bermuda, even as it assails corporations for lacking the “economic patriotism” to pay taxes. Accenture was awarded a contract in January that’s now grown to well over $100 million to make improvements to… – Continue reading
The Enforcement Directorate, which is probing the money laundering aspect of the multi-crore Saradha scam, has for the first time found evidence of the money being parked in offshore accounts. The ED sleuths, sources said, have found that Santanu Ghosh, chairman of Xenitis Group and an accused in the scam,… – Continue reading
Burger King’s announcement that it will move its headquarters to Canada has put the spotlight on that country’s tax system. However, the tax benefits of doing business in Canada, as opposed to doing business in the U.S. are not well-known. First, Canada has a much lower corporate tax rate: 15… – Continue reading
You’ll have to forgive Amazon for getting a little flustered when the British Parliament publicly blasted the company for “gaming the system” to dodge paying taxes. Amazon is an American company. They’re used to far more deferential treatment. Responding to how the company paid only $7 million in taxes despite… – Continue reading
I n July, the American pharmaceutical giant AbbVie, maker of the world’s top-selling drug – the arthritis treatment Humira – reached a blockbuster deal to acquire European rival Shire, best known for the attention-deficit medication Adderall. The merger was cheered by Wall Street, not for what the deal will do… – Continue reading
Samsung Electronics has put an end to months of industry speculation by making a formal announcement that it will indeed be opening a manufacturing plant in Durban’s Dube Trade Port, at which it will make televisions for the local consumer market. The company has committed to a total investment totalling… – Continue reading
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Politicians are up in arms over the growing wave of U.S. corporations hooking up with foreign companies as a way to lower their U.S. tax bills. But for some, a merger,known as an inversion, isn’t the method of choice for paring a tax bill. There’s another… – Continue reading
Pictet & Cie. Group SCA, Switzerland’s biggest closely held bank, increased assets under management six percent in the first half, as narrowing margins and a U.S. tax program led some competitors to sell or downsize. Managed assets grew to 319 billion Swiss francs ($348 billion) from 301 billion francs, Pictet said… – Continue reading
VP Bank said it had now concluded that it no longer needed to take part in the programme. “Thorough internal investigations and external expert opinions showed that the conditions for continued participation did not exist,” the Liechtenstein-based bank said in a statement accompanying its half-year results. “VP Bank therefore withdrew… – Continue reading
An innocuously named species of transaction has inspired a political furor this summer. After a number of U.S. companies announced plans to move overseas in so-called inversion deals, Sen. Carl Levin proposed banning them outright. President Barack Obama called the companies unpatriotic. Because of the controversy, Walgreen Co. backed away… – Continue reading
Twitter is the latest major internet multinational to have opened up a Spanish subsidiary. But the popular micro-blogging site has followed in the footsteps of Google, Apple, Facebook and Linkedin, all of whom keep their Spanish corporate taxes down to the bare minimum by shifting their income to Ireland. Created… – Continue reading
According to Canada’s finance minister, the country’s corporate tax rate has dropped from 20% to 15% since the Conservative government took office in 2006. The U.S. tax rate is 35%, making the tax advantage for Burger King’s move to Canada a central part of the deal. Cutting corporate tax payments… – Continue reading
WASHINGTON — Two top Republican lawmakers profited from a corporate tax-avoidance maneuver that the Treasury Department is seeking to curb. While House Speaker John Boehner, Ohio, and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, Mich., have resisted calls for a crackdown on companies adopting overseas addresses to pay lower taxes,… – Continue reading
WEALTHY South Africans’ banking needs have changed in the past decade as exchange-control regulations have eased, and they have found themselves forging complex relationships with multiple global financial service providers. A wealthy South African might have a private bank and investment banking relationship domestically, as well as offshore banking and… – Continue reading
With all the talk about inversions and America’s Burger King Going Canadian, it’s easy to ignore even more prevalent tax savings by numerous American companies. Take Microsoft, which admits in its 2014 SEC filing that it avoids $30 billion in U.S. taxes. The trick? Keep about triple that amount, $93… – Continue reading
Microsoft’s stash of cash stored overseas, not subject to US taxes, is growing. In its latest regulatory filing, the software giant said it has now stockpiled $92.9 billion offshore and that this money could have cost the company $29.6 billion in taxes, but didn’t. That compares to $76.4 billion from… – Continue reading
NEW YORK — There’s more than one way for a U.S. company to avoid taxes by claiming a foreign address. Consider the business founded in 1916 as General Plate Co., a maker of sensors and controls for everything from Fords and Frigidaires to the spaceship that first carried Americans to… – Continue reading
Burger King is moving to Canada, by way of Omaha. Warren Buffett is finally getting into the burger business. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway brk.a -0.00% has agreed to help finance Burger King’s BKW -4.32% purchase of Canadian coffee-and-doughnut chain Tim Hortons THI 8.47% . The deal, first reported by The Wall… – Continue reading
VietNamNet Bridge – The bad news about tax evasion and debt repudiation cases by foreign invested companies has darkened Vietnam’s foreign direct investment (FDI) landscape. Tuoi Tre newspaper has reported that Austrian Harald Biebl, director of the HCM City-based Bach Hop Company, operational in Vietnam since 2005, has fled the… – Continue reading
Microsoft Corp. is currently sitting on almost $29.6 billion it would owe in U.S. taxes if it repatriated the $92.9 billion of earnings it is keeping offshore, according to disclosures in the company’s most recent annual filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The amount of money that Microsoft is… – Continue reading
MONTREAL • Eugene Melnyk, the billionaire owner of the Ottawa Senators and founder of drug maker Biovail Corp., is waging war against the company that now controls his one-time business. Mr. Melnyk alleges that Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. is masquerading as a Canadian company to make use of this country’s… – Continue reading
Planting its European headquarters in Luxembourg has afforded Amazon significant tax advantages. That does not sit well in Britain, where members of Parliament from across the political spectrum have expressed outrage at the strategy. t would be hard to find anything better, unless, of course, you’re Cecil or Amazon. A… – Continue reading
The Delhi High Court upholds the non-taxability of gains from sale of shares of overseas entities by the Copal Group to the Moody’s Group. Interpretation of the indirect transfer tax provisions in a restrictive manner. 50% threshold for substantiality based on guidance by OECD/ UN material and Shome Committee Report… – Continue reading
More private Swiss banks are suffering slumping profits, with a crackdown by the US authorities on tax cheats having a big effect. A study by consultancy firm KPMG and Switzerland’s University of Saint Gallen found that of the 94 they examined more than a third did not make any profit… – Continue reading
Reasons given by the bank for refusing to publish findings of an investigation into alleged tax evasion remain unconvincing When commodities giant Glencore publishes its half-yearly report on Wednesday, it is unlikely to mention what may be a significant victory for the firm. This relates to an investigation into allegations… – Continue reading
Companies with links to John George Russell are accused of entering into “tax avoidance” arrangements and are in a $3.5 million fight with the IRD. Russell – who developed a template that the Court of Appeal called a “blatant tax-avoidance scheme” – is a 79-year-old accountant being chased by the… – Continue reading
