A European probe into the Irish taxes paid by technology giant Apple, as well as multi-nationals in Luxembourg and the Netherlands, is close to finishing. The news came as Taoiseach Enda Kenny issues a robust defence of Ireland’s corporate tax regime, which has been under international pressure in recent years… – Continue reading
LAS VEGAS, June 4, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Remark Media, Inc. (NASDAQ: MARK) today announced that its Board of Directors has adopted a plan, known as the Tax Benefit Preservation Plan, designed to protect the significant potential long-term tax benefits presented by the company’s net operating losses. Remark intends to seek… – Continue reading
By 2013, Banque Cramer knew it had a problem. With just SFr2bn of client money, the 300-year-old Swiss private bank was too small to weather the radical changes sweeping through its industry, reports Financial Times. Extra regulatory and compliance demands were driving up costs. Big advantages that traditionally helped Swiss… – Continue reading
Many mid-size U.S. cities and other areas now make attractive alternatives to India and other offshore locations for companies considering consolidating finance, IT, and other business services operations for shared service or global business services centers, according to new research from The Hackett Group, Inc. The diminishing gap in labor… – Continue reading
Two Switzerland-based banks have agreed to disclose secret accounts belonging to US taxpayers as part of a new US program to fight offshore tax evasion, the US Department of Justice announced in a statement on Wednesday. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — “The days of safely hiding behind shell corporations and numbered bank… – Continue reading
THE South African Revenue Service (SARS ) is to significantly beef up its capacity to deal with base erosion and profit shifting, which has received intense focus by MPs over the last few months. SARS commissioner Tom Moyane said on Wednesday 24 more tax specialists would be employed in the… – Continue reading
On Thursday, May 28, 2015, the Department of Justice announced that pursuant to its August 29, 2013 Swiss Bank Program, it had reached settlement with four additional Swiss banks. The newest banks to settle, Société Générale Private Banking (Lugano-Svizzera), MediBank AG, LBBW (Schweiz) AG, and Scobag Privatbank AG, will pay… – Continue reading
Last week, the Justice Department announced that it had reached resolutions with four more Swiss banks under the terms of the DOJ Swiss Bank Program. The latest banks to resolve their U.S. tax issues are the following: Société Générale Private Banking (Lugano-Svizzera); MediBank AG; LBBW (Schweiz) AG; and Scobag Privatbank… – Continue reading
State Street Corp. was ordered by regulators to revamp its compliance programs after deficiencies were found related to internal controls, customer due-diligence procedures and transaction monitoring. The Boston-based bank had warned last month that it would likely face a public enforcement action from the Federal Reserve and Massachusetts Division of… – Continue reading
From today, negotiation on the Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (IPPA) between Nigeria and Singapore will start in Abuja, aimed at enhancing business between the two countries. Revealing this in an interview with the African Independent Television (AIT), Nigerian High Commissioner to Singapore. Mrs. Nonye Rajis-Opara, said there would be… – Continue reading
Barclays has launched an internal review into whether its accounts were used for corrupt payments by FIFA officials, a banking source told AFP on Sunday. Standard Chartered has also said it was investigating payments cited in the US indictment. UK-headquartered Barclays, Standard Chartered and HSBC were among more than a… – Continue reading
British Virgin Islands, Caymans and Turks & Caicos feature heavily in justice department indictment of senior football officials British overseas tax havens play a key role in what US authorities have called “rampant, systemic and deep-rooted” corruption in the world of football, analysis by the Observer reveals. The 164-page US… – Continue reading
UBS Global Asset Management (Taiwan) Ltd (瑞銀環球資產管理台灣) has received Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) approval to launch a consulting service in Taiwan via an offshore banking unit, which might help generate US$3 billion in three years for its asset management business. UBS Taiwan, which is to launch the service in July,… – Continue reading
The leadership of Costa Rican football has circled the wagons around their embattled president, Eduardo Li, after Li was arrested in Zurich, Switzerland, Wednesday on charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering. Jorge Hidalgo, acting president of the Costa Rican Football Federation, FEDEFÚTBOL, told the website Amelia Rueda that… – Continue reading
The company that runs a swathe of Britain’s internet service is being bought by an American predator that plans to fold it into a giant international tax haven. Telecity operates data centres all over Europe – which house the wires that make the internet work – including sites in London… – Continue reading
■ Barclays and HSBC have been named in legal papers filed in the US ■ Documents have also named London-based Standard Chartered Bank ■ Allegedly moved suspect transactions linked to Fifa through their accounts ■ Britain’s Serious Fraud Office is understood to be monitoring situation Two of Britain’s biggest High… – Continue reading
The Swiss government and hundreds of Swiss banks have been roiled by the U.S. crackdown on American tax evaders. With six years of almost non-stop hits to the country and its bankers, it may be no surprise that now Switzerland is publishing the names of foreign tax evaders. Some observers… – Continue reading
SHARES in the health outsourcing firm Synergy Healthcare saw sharp losses yesterday as reports circulated that US authorities were going to block its proposed takeover by Steris, a rival American company. The FTSE 250 company’s shares finished the trading day down 15.8 per cent, to 1,822p, having recovered slightly from… – Continue reading
Avago Technologies Ltd.’s pending takeover of Broadcom Corp. taps an arcane tax structure that has being dusted off amid a rise in cross-border mergers. Avago said it is prepared to offer Broadcom shareholders special partnership units that would defer any taxes triggered by the $37 billion tie-up, which was announced… – Continue reading
The executive chairman of Walgreens Boots Alliance said the Deerfield-based drugstore chain was made a “whipping boy” by the Obama administration and elected officials opposed to corporate tax inversions. “The Obama administration and (Treasury Secretary Jack Lew) were taking the opportunity to select any company that was even thinking about… – Continue reading
Sluggish syndicated loan dealflow is proving to be good news for small and mid-cap privately-owned Chinese companies like Golden Eagle Group and Xinyi Solar, which are finding themselves able to enjoy pricing levels usually reserved for better known names. And so great is bank demand for assets that looser structuring… – Continue reading
Fortescue Metals Group established a company in Singapore that could buy and sell its iron ore more than a year before it started attacking its rivals for doing the same thing. The company, called Fortescue International Marketing, is incorporated and domiciled in Singapore. Still dormant, it is ready to be… – Continue reading
Operator’s CFO Nick Read tells Mobile News it doesn’t make the profits to justify paying it Vodafone says it can not “justify” paying corporation tax in the UK despite posting earnings of £1.3 billion and operating profits of £41 million in its full year financial results (ending March 31). The… – Continue reading
The U.S. is examining banks’ conduct as part of a wide-ranging corruption probe of international soccer that has led to charges against 14 people, including officials with the sport’s organizing body. Money involved in the two-decade-old bribery scheme passed through U.S. banks including Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co.,… – Continue reading
Britain’s banks have in recent years paid a third of the corporation tax they were paying less than a decade ago despite a rebound in profits, a study showed yesterday, reports the Times of Malta. The study comes as HSBC and Standard Chartered assess whether to move their headquarters to… – Continue reading
Switzerland and the European Union have signed an agreement providing for the automatic exchange of banking information, effective 2018. On Wednesday, Swiss State Secretary for International Financial Matters Jacques de Watteville signed the accord in Brussels along with EU Tax Commissioner Pierre Moscovici and Latvian Finance Minister Janis Reirs. Before… – Continue reading
Perhaps the most quoted dictum from any tax case comes from Judge Learned Hand of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the 1934 case of Evelyn Gregory against Guy T. Helvering (then the commissioner of the I.R.S.): Any one may so arrange his affairs that… – Continue reading
Research shows corporation tax receipts from banks are lower than before crisis despite global tax payments staying constant Britain’s banks are paying far less in corporation tax to the Exchequer than before the crisis, despite their profits improving and global tax payments staying constant. Research from Cambridge Judge Business School… – Continue reading
The news that Royal Bank of Canada plans to sell its wealth management services in Barbados no doubt caused some people to question the island’s future as a major centre for this type of business. After all, if the biggest player is leaving the field, what might this say to… – Continue reading
The company decided to declare its revenues since European regulators started to investigate its accounting practices. Internet retailer Amazon paid about US$16 million to Germany in 2014, while the giant multinational recorded a total earning of US$16 billion in that country, according to the country’s regulators. In the past, the… – Continue reading
Six of the biggest names in global finance shelled out billions of dollars Wednesday to settle charges of rigging currency markets, but liberal lawmakers complain the government is just doling out slaps on the wrist. On Wednesday, the Justice Department announced a settlement that also saw five banks plead guilty… – Continue reading
Switzerland has begun online publication of names of foreigners and foreign firms wanted in tax probes by their countries of origin, including Germany. American citizens are identified only by their initials. The Swiss Sunday newspaper “Sonntagszeitung” said the alpine nation was flooded with formal tracing requests from foreign tax authorities…. – Continue reading
Switzerland has begun revealing alleged foreign tax dodgers that are wanted by tax authorities in their native countries, Swiss newspaper Sonntagszeitung reported. MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Names, birth dates and nationalities of people suspected by their countries of origin to have stashed money in the alpine tax haven are being published… – Continue reading
It’s shaping as a fight that could recover hundreds of millions in lost tax revenue. In one corner is the commissioner of taxation. In the other, Australia’s two biggest miners — BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto. At stake is their use of Singapore-based marketing hubs, which until now have remained… – Continue reading
Malta’s credibility as a financial centre has taken another hit as news broke this week about a legal battle for the millions of euros accumulated by Mutassim Gaddafi – son of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi – currently frozen in a Bank of Valletta account. Malta’s role in all this came… – Continue reading
America the not so brave CRACKING down on tax evasion “has been a core piece of President Obama’s agenda” since before he took office, according to a spokesman. His administration’s campaign to that end has been a “groundbreaking” success, according to the Department of Justice, the agency that has led… – Continue reading
Rio Tinto’s head of tax – who was recently hauled before the Senate inquiry into corporate tax avoidance about the lack of tax the miner pays – will now be also advising the Abbott government on how to improve the tax system and increase transparency in relation to the tax… – Continue reading
Canada’s health-care stocks are sizzling, as Concordia Healthcare Corp. and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc.’s buy-and-streamline strategy has pushed the industry’s earnings and margins ahead of U.S. peers. The drugmakers are the two top-performing stocks in the Canadian equity benchmark this year, boosting total returns for the members of the Standard… – Continue reading
ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has decided to launch an investigation into Axact Pakistan (Pvt) Limited’s assets in foreign countries, including the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, bank accounts, credit card transactions and internet marketing in and outside Pakistan. FBR’s subsidiary Directorate General Intelligence & Investigation… – Continue reading
At a time when traders who bet on deals are constantly being thrown curve balls, more bad news: Yahoo! Inc.’s plan to make them rich may be getting derailed. The stock plummeted as much as 12 percent near the end of Tuesday’s trading session because the U.S. Internal Revenue Service… – Continue reading
Actor John Malkovich has sued the French daily paper Le Monde over false reports saying he had a secret Swiss account. The defamation suit is the latest proof that having an undisclosed account in Switzerland—or perhaps anywhere—is an embarrassment for anyone. Whether politician, public figure, or anyone else, no one… – Continue reading
Another offshore bank, Finter Bank Zurich AG (Finter), located in Zurich, Switzerland, has reached a resolution under the US Justice Department’s so called Swiss Bank Program, reports the Curacao Chronicle. The Swiss Bank Program, which was announced on August 29, 2013, provides a path for Swiss banks to resolve potential… – Continue reading
Verizon consolidated nearly 1,500 finance operations staff from more than 300 U.S. locations into service centers in Lake Mary, Fla., and Tulsa, Okla., indicative of a trend among companies placing business service operations in mid-size U.S. cities rather than offshore locations such as India, according to a new report. The… – Continue reading
The advantages of off-shore investments Two of the top reasons that South African investors are given to encourage offshore investments are that going offshore diversifies your portfolio and that it gives you access to sectors you could never find on the resource-heavy JSE. “While those are not reasons to be… – Continue reading
Short cuts, loopholes and other forms of skulduggery will not be tolerated when the automatic exchange of tax information comes into force, a top official from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has promised Swiss bankers, reports FinFacts. Grace Perez-Navarro, second in command at the OECD’s tax policy… – Continue reading
The I-T dept has received over 500 applications from MNCs for signing APAs. Income-tax department has set a target of 50 advance pricing agreements (APAs) to be sealed with multinational companies in the current fiscal that will exempt cross-border transactions by these firms from rigorous auditing to check income suppression…. – Continue reading
Luxembourg has been a prime destination for Canadians looking for a tax haven. Secretive. Discreet. Accommodating. These features were so attractive that Canadian companies, including a federal pension fund, sent $36 billion there in 2013. But new Statistics Canada data shows that more than $5 billion got pulled out of… – Continue reading
Taipei, May 16 (CNA) Chinese yuan-dominated deposits held by banks operating in Taiwan hit a new high as of the end of April, according to the Central Bank of the Republic of China. Market analysts said that the increase in the balance of Taiwanese banks’ yuan deposits largely resulted from… – Continue reading
JOHANNESBURG – A R2.6bn merger deal between telecoms firm Telkom and IT services company Business Connexion Group (BCX) has been approved with conditions. The Competition Commission (CompCom) on Thursday announced that it recommended to the Competition Tribunal that the merger be approved with conditions. “These are technical conditions relating to… – Continue reading
The minimum alternate tax row has damaged the credibility of government promises to enforce an investor-friendly tax regime and made the Indian stock market Asia’s worst performer this year New Delhi/Mumbai: Castleton Investment Ltd, a unit of GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK), in 2012 asked an arm of the Indian finance ministry… – Continue reading
