A Wednesday forum organized by the Urban Development Institute in Vancouver is dealing with foreign ownership in the local housing market. and there’s new concern about offshore buyers avoiding Canadian tax. Globe and Mail reporter Kathy Tomlinson investigated one case of a private equity manager in Beijing buying a $2.3… – Continue reading
Supporters of a plan to tax overseas profits to pay for U.S. transportation projects said Wednesday the proposal is the “only possible path forward” for passing a highway bill in the House this month. The sponsors of legislation in the House containing the offshore taxes-for-roads proposal said the plan, known… – Continue reading
In an affidavit that was filed with the Federal Court of Appeal on September 25, 2015 in support of the government’s response to block a motion for injunctive relief that had been brought by the plaintiffs, Sue Murray, Director of the Canada Revenue Agency’s Competent Authority Services Division, International and… – Continue reading
Countries should commit to minimum standards on the resolution of international tax disputes, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said in a report published as part of its base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) project.06 Oct 2015 The standards would include a commitment to “seek to resolve” cases… – Continue reading
PRESS RELEASE – The Caribbean Association of Banks Inc. (CAB) is once more forced to express its deep concern over yet another “tax-haven” list which includes 15 Commonwealth Caribbean countries. The referred list appears within the District of Columbia’s 2015 Budget Support Act which expands the definition of “tax haven”… – Continue reading
The architects of a sweeping set of recommendations to battle offshore tax avoidance insist their project won’t allow foreign countries to simply grab cash from U.S. companies. The business community isn’t convinced. Senior officials at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a Paris-based research group sponsored by almost… – Continue reading
BOSTON – Tax havens are legal, but proponents of tax reform say eight companies headquartered in Massachusetts are using them and costing the state millions of dollars in revenue. The MassPIRG Education Fund and Citizens for Tax Justice released a report on Tuesday saying 72 percent of Fortune 500 companies… – Continue reading
72% of Fortune 500 companies have offshore subsidiaries PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — More than 72% of Fortune 500 companies have subsidiaries in offshore tax havens to take advantage of tax loopholes, a new study by the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group showed. Oregon-based companies in the Fortune 500 are… – Continue reading
A financial adviser is one of the five defendants embroiled in a court battle after facing allegations of setting up a £262 million tax avoidance scheme. In a trial at Birmingham Crown Court, financial adviser Norman Leighton, chartered accountant and film producer Keith Hayley, producer Robert Bevan, Charles Savill and… – Continue reading
The 500 largest American companies hold more than $2.1 trillion in accumulated profits offshore to avoid U.S. taxes and would collectively owe an estimated $620 billion in U.S. taxes if they repatriated the funds, according to a study released on Tuesday. The study, by two left-leaning non-profit groups, found that… – Continue reading
LONDON (CNNMoney) — Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands are more than just sunny vacation spots. They’re also three of the biggest tax havens for U.S. companies, according to a report from the left-leaning Citizens for Tax Justice and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. The islands… – Continue reading
In a move which is likely to be of interest to those organisations who put systems and procedures in place to comply, the US has recently announced (September 2015) that information on US persons does not now need to be exchanged for certain jurisdictions until September 2016. In Notice 2015-66… – Continue reading
Last year at this time, news about “tax inversions” was grabbing headlines – cases where large U.S. multinationals would buy a foreign company in a tax-friendly jurisdiction, and then relocate its headquarters to reap the tax arbitrage benefits. The Obama administration responded to the rash of high-profile inversions with new… – Continue reading
On October 2, 2015, the Internal Revenue Service announced that it had achieved a key milestone in implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), a critical anti-tax evasion law passed by Congress in 2010 but not fully implemented until July 2014. The milestone announced by the IRS was… – Continue reading
Daily Herald Reports Specialty drug manufacturer Horizon Pharma, which moved its corporate headquarters from Deerfield to Ireland in 2014, announced it is relocating its U.S. headquarters from Deerfield to Lake Forest as part of a company expansion. The Dublin-based company reported it signed a long-term sublease on a 160,000-square-foot building… – Continue reading
The IRS has announced that as of September 30, 2015 it will implement the automatic exchange of tax information as set forth in the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, (FATCA). The IRS Commissioner in announcing the implementation of the automatic exchange of information stated: “This information exchange is part of… – Continue reading
Opposition to foreign taxes on American investment and hard work has been coded into our national DNA for almost 240 years. Yet almost two and a half centuries after resolving that we would not stand idle while others decide how to tax us, Americans once again must take decisive action… – Continue reading
Not only does the United States retain the dubious distinction of having the highest corporate tax rate in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development country grouping, it now has the third-highest rate of corporate tax in the world, according to the Tax Foundation. The non-partisan tax policy think tank… – Continue reading
A plan for overhauling the global system for the taxation of multinationals, to be published on Monday in Paris, will contain major challenges and opportunities for Ireland’s vital foreign direct investment (FDI) sector, according to tax experts, reports the Irish Times. The culmination of two years’ work, the report by… – Continue reading
SOME of Plymouth best-known landmarks are owned by secretive offshore companies based in tax havens, it has been revealed. Swathes of land all over the city belongs to faceless firms based in places like Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands, The Herald can reveal. They include everything from historic former military… – Continue reading
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said that people who had not declared their undisclosed assets in the 90-day compliance window offered by the government will now face the law including penalty and sentence upto 10 years while 638 people who had made the declaration can “now sleep well.” In… – Continue reading
Wealthy Dutch people are abusing tax havens abroad to prevent from being taxed on 129 billion euros in deposits, a former tax inspector told television show Nieuwsuur. The money is held in the accounts of shell companies based in the Cayman Islands, Seychelles and Virgin Islands, among other locations, the… – Continue reading
NEW YORK, Oct. 5, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — The following statement is being issued today by KPMG LLP on the final recommendations released on Oct. 5 by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on its coordinated Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS): “The OECD’s final recommendations… – Continue reading
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A former Swiss bank executive is due to be sentenced in Florida for conspiracy as part of a long-running U.S. investigation into tax evasion. Hansruedi Schumacher could avoid prison in the scheme because of his cooperation. He pleaded guilty in April to conspiring to… – Continue reading
Colombia and Panama have given each other another 60 days to come to agreement on how to combat Colombian tax evasion through Panamanian banks. The two countries failed to meet the negotiation deadline set for the exchange of tax information after one year, extending a further 60 days, in a… – Continue reading
The OECD’s measures to reform international corporate tax systems will cause Ireland fewer problems than forecast, but for eurozone countries it will be just the beginning of greater and more detailed change. Following two years of constant meetings between tax experts from its 34 country members, the Paris-based body releases… – Continue reading
The United States has included India in a list of 34 countries with which the US administration would automatically share information under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) regulations. The US Treasury Department has now added 16 new countries, including India, to an original list with which the US… – Continue reading
Two banks owned by former Tory Party vice-chairman Lord Ashcroft are at the centre of a major US tax evasion investigation. Authorities are probing whether wealthy Americans have been using the banks, based in the Central American tax haven Belize, to shelter funds offshore. Billionaire Lord Ashcroft is the majority… – Continue reading
Millions of pounds of British aid money could have been given to known tax havens to fund public services The UK paid out £45m to 13 countries on the European Commission’s tax haven “blacklist” in 2013, according to a report in The Independent. The blacklisted countries that received British aid… – Continue reading
Government’s anti-corruption champion says legislation is one option if British overseas territories fail to adopt public registers of companies The government could legislate to force the UK’s tax havens to reveal for the first time the true owners of offshore companies, anti-corruption champion Sir Eric Pickles has indicated. Pickles described… – Continue reading
The income tax department has signed 16 advance pricing agreements (APAs) with multinational companies (MNCs) so far, exempting their transactions with local units from rigorous tax audits. The income tax department has signed 16 advance pricing agreements (APAs) with multinational companies (MNCs) so far, exempting their transactions with local units… – Continue reading
Once again, Commonwealth Caribbean countries are under attack as “tax havens”, even though they are nothing of the sort. This time it is not only the usual countries which have been listed. Trinidad and Tobago has been included, and we can bet that Jamaica and Guyana will be added unless… – Continue reading
Under the intergovernmental agreement between the UAE and the US the first report, disclosing the financial activities of US citizens in 2014, was due to be submitted to the US by September 30, 2015. This agreement was signed to facilitate implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca), a… – Continue reading
MUMBAI: The US Treasury Department has issued a list of 34 countries which includes India with whom it would share information under FATCA (foreign account tax compliance act) regulations. The pact aims to cover automatic sharing of information on bank accounts and other instruments like mutual funds, insurance and equities… – Continue reading
AS the more lurid and unproven claims in Lord Ashcroft’s self-published hatchet job on the prime minister attract widespread ridicule, more embarrassment looms for the Tory peer concerning his banking operations in shady Belize. The US Department of Justice recently issued a summons for details of so-called correspondent bank accounts… – Continue reading
Efforts to block the exchange of information on US taxpayers’ foreign accounts are halted as an Ohio federal judge says Sen. Paul and six others don’t have standing to challenge parts of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, reports BNA. US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio Judge… – Continue reading
Hong Kong (HKSAR) – Six orders for implementing the tax information exchange agreements (TIEAs) with six Nordic jurisdictions (i.e. Denmark, the Faroes, Greenland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden), and an order for implementing the Fourth Protocol to the Comprehensive Arrangement for the Avoidance of Double Taxation with the Mainland (the Arrangement)… – Continue reading
On July 27, 2015, the U.S. Tax Court issued a stunning rebuke to the IRS by invalidating the part of the Internal Revenue Services’ (IRS) cost-sharing regulations under section 482 of the Internal Revenue Code that says taxpayers have to take into account, among other costs, the costs of stock-based… – Continue reading
It’s not just about the pig’s head. Britain’s headline writers went into high porcine pun mode last month over a suggestion that Prime Minister David Cameron, while still in university, had taken part in a club-initiation ritual that bizarrely incorporated part of a pig carcass. The second-hand allegation appears in… – Continue reading
The Internal Revenue Service said Friday it has met a key milestone relating to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA, having begun exchanging tax information with certain foreign governments in time to meet a Sept. 30, 2015 deadline. The automatic exchange of account information with tax authorities abroad… – Continue reading
Introduction The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) requires non-US financial institutions, including investment entities, to report US account holders to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). This reporting is causing US taxpayers living abroad to consider whether they have been adequately filing annually their income and information returns in the… – Continue reading
The Luxembourg “FATCA Law”1 became effective on 1 August 2015. Among other provisions, the FATCA Law implemented the Model 1 Luxembourg–U.S. intergovernmental agreement of 28 March 2014 (IGA). On the day prior to the law taking effect, the Administration des Contributions Directes (Office of Income Tax) issued two circulars on… – Continue reading
Prime minister says he is still not happy with way some British overseas territories are resisting financial transparency, reports The Guardian. David Cameron has accused some British overseas territories and crown dependencies of not doing enough to tackle tax evasion and money laundering. The prime minister took the offshore financial… – Continue reading
Using companies incorporated in international financial centres (IFCs) in structuring financial transactions, capital raisings and corporate structures has long been popular in Asia, particularly Hong Kong (itself an IFC). Following the energetic expansion of the PRC economy and assisted in part by the relaxation of PRC regulations in relation to… – Continue reading
SOUTH Africa has ranked higher than several developed countries in an assessment of money “hidden” in HSBC Swiss bank accounts, a report showed on Wednesday. “The money connected to SA was higher than money connected to France, eight times higher than that of the US, and 3.5 times more than… – Continue reading
Federal judge in Ohio says Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul and others don’t have standing to challenge a law requiring banks to report on foreign accounts of U.S. taxpayers, and they aren’t likely to succeed on merits of case, Bloomberg BNA’s Alison Bennett reports. U.S. District Judge Thomas Rose… – Continue reading
Quebec — Tax havens are depriving Quebecers of at least $1.5 billion a year, said Québec solidaire MNA Amir Khadir on the opening day of parliamentary hearings on the worldwide phenomenon. The National Assembly’s public finances committee decided last June to dedicate several days this fall to the study of… – Continue reading
On 14 September 2015, Cambodia and the United States signed a Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) Agreement. FATCA seeks to obtain information on accounts held by U.S. taxpayers in other countries. It requires U.S. financial institutions to withhold a portion of certain payments made to Foreign Financial Institutions (FFIs)… – Continue reading
Tens of millions of pounds worth of property in St Austell is owned by companies based in offshore tax havens. They include large parts of Fore Street in the town centre; the beaches at Carlyon Bay, and dozens of individual buildings throughout St Austell and the clay country. NHS Kernow’s… – Continue reading
A stream of people, including those from Rajasthan and Karnataka, walked into the only designated office before the closure of the one-time compliance window The Centre’s efforts to unearth unaccounted money stashed abroad seems to have got a tepid response, with the declarations made under the three-month compliance window that… – Continue reading
