The implementation of tax information reporting agreements is costing the financial services sector a pretty penny. Financial Services Councillor Roy McTaggart told Cayman 27 the industry has spent time and money making sure their systems are compatible with government’s recently established reporting portal, which ultimately transmits the information to the… – Continue reading
Italy has ratified the inter-governmental agreement top facilitate compliance with the United States Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. 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
Remuneration paid for employment services performed in Canada (even for short-term assignments) by non-resident employees is subject to Canadian income tax withholding, remittance and reporting requirements under subsection 153(1) and regulation 102 (Reg. 102) of the Income Tax Act (Canada) (Act). On April 21, 2015, Finance Minister Joe Oliver tabled… – Continue reading
The controversy surrounding tax evasion strategies used by HSBC’s Swiss private banking arm will be reignited next week when Stephen Green, the former boss of the bank, faces questions in the House of Lords. Lord Green, who left HSBC to become trade minister in 2011, will give evidence to the… – Continue reading
A recent report from the U.S. Treasury Department pinpoints U.S. banks as the source for more than $300 billion a year in dirty money. That leads to big fines for banks. But on the U.S.-Mexico border, it’s small business owners who are being blamed. Nearly a quarter million head of… – Continue reading
House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) made it clear Thursday that tapping offshore corporate profits was his top choice for funding a longer-term highway bill. In fact, Ryan declined to even lay out what the House GOP’s “Plan B” might be, ahead of a looming July 31 deadline… – Continue reading
The US Internal Revenue Service is cracking down on hedge funds, challenging a tax strategy called “basket options” that is used to claim billions of dollars in tax savings, the New York Times has reported. Hedge funds using the options must declare them on their tax returns and they will… – Continue reading
The FINANCIAL — On June 10, 2015, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the Article IV consultation with Panama. Panama’s economic performance is expected to remain strong. Real GDP slowed to 6.2 percent in 2014, reflecting a slower pace of public investment, continued weakness in Colon… – Continue reading
George Osborne’s family business struck a £6m deal with a property developer based in an offshore tax haven, it has been reported. The upmarket wallpaper firm Osborne & Little is claimed to have linked up with a corporation in the British Virgin Islands to turn its former headquarters in an… – Continue reading
PARIS (Reuters) – The U.S, UK and Chinese economies are showing fresh signs of weakening while activity in the euro zone as a whole is firming up, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said on Wednesday. The OECD’s monthly leading indicator, a measure designed to flag turning points in… – Continue reading
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell threw cold water Wednesday on a bipartisan plan to use revenue from tax reform to repair the nation’s crumbling roads and bridges, even as Republicans grope for a way to keep highway projects running this summer. McConnell (R-Ky.) signaled plans to take up consideration of… – Continue reading
“American” corporations that “invert,” or establish offshore domiciles in order to avoid payment of U.S. taxes, are still feeding at the government trough. They have benefited from American laws, courts and infrastructure, becoming obscenely wealthy – yet refuse to return the favor to We The People. And who and what… – Continue reading
Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today released a long-awaited tax reform plan that reads like a wish list for multinational corporations. The Senate Finance Committee working group’s report provides recommendations for restructuring the federal government’s international corporation tax rules. The plan is long on misguided ideas and… – Continue reading
The Liechtenstein tax authorities have announced that the FATCA reporting deadline in Liechtenstein has been extended to 31 July 2015 (from 30 June 2015). 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… – Continue reading
Step aside, Doctors Without Borders. A new class of professionals is ignoring national frontiers to come to the aid of economically struggling nations. A team called Tax Inspectors Without Borders will begin helping developing countries deal with the flood of income to low-tax jurisdictions once it’s established next week by… – Continue reading
Barbados and other Caribbean leaders who held a recent summit in Bridgetown want the European Union to lift the blacklisting of Caribbean offshore jurisdictions immediately, reports the Barbados Advocate. The demand is contained in the Heads of Government Communique which was issued following the July 2-4 summit at the Hilton…. – Continue reading
Where Qualified Dividend Treatment Is Important, Serious Consideration Should Be Given to Ensuring the Company Is Eligible for Treaty Benefits Before Taking It Public. Dividends generally are taxed at ordinary income rates (up to 39.6 percent for individuals). Qualified dividends derived by individuals, however, are taxed at the preferential rate… – Continue reading
The FINANCIAL — Tax is firmly under the spotlight and in the global insurance industry, the ramifications for finance and tax teams will be felt in both a new set of business demands and an overhaul of how these functions interact and operate. However, a new report from PwC says… – Continue reading
[NEW YORK] HSBC Holdings Plc, smarting from a US$1.9 billion fine for providing banking to money launderers and sanctions-dodgers, promised US officials it would clean up its act. Within a year, its reform efforts met resistance from leaders of HSBC’s US investment-banking unit – some of whom mounted a campaign… – Continue reading
With the first round of US FATCA reporting completed on Friday, 26 June, Cayman Islands Reporting Financial Institutions (RFIs) can now begin their summer relaxation in earnest, having successfully navigated the complex notification and reporting processes. For many, the process has been all-consuming since 1 January, when FATCA went live,… – Continue reading
NEW DELHI: India said it was cracking down on attempts to launder black money locally and told people with unaccounted assets abroad that it will become increasingly difficult to conceal these, urging them to make use of a window that shuts on September 30. The government will start receiving financial… – Continue reading
Silver streaming company Silver Wheaton Corp said it received a proposal from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) on Monday to reassess the company under various income tax rules. The CRA is seeking to tax streaming income earned by the company’s foreign units and said that Silver Wheaton’s taxable income should… – Continue reading
BARBADOS is targeting the South American country of Colombia for more international business. A delegation from the island will be spending the next week or so in that country as this island looks to broaden the more than $900 million in domestic contributions by the international Business and Financial Services… – Continue reading
NEW DELHI: India is likely to sign the inter-governmental pact for the US tax compliance law FATCA on Thursday, a move that will help it fight tax evasion. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is aimed at combating possible tax evasion by Americans through financial entities of other countries. The… – Continue reading
Against a backdrop of slowing economic growth at home, Canadian companies are actively looking to expand in markets such as the United States, China and Mexico, says Simon Cooper, chief executive of global commercial banking at HSBC Bank Plc. “In Canada, from the companies I’m talking to about how they’re… – Continue reading
With the increasing focus by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on offshore activities, it is important to understand the tax return and information return filing obligations that may be associated with such activities. Because application of many of these obligations is not entirely clear in certain common situations, many taxpayers… – Continue reading
Concerns have been raised that there is an anomaly in the Canadian overseas pension schemes system, as under Canadian law savers are allowed to encash them at any age, irrespective of the UK’s pension age test, reports the FT Adviser. HM Revenue and Customs’ pension age test requires schemes to… – Continue reading
The new banking act, harmonized legislation for the OECS being pushed by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank got its first reading in the parliament in Basseterre Tuesday. However the parliamentary opposition is crying foul because the debate which was expected to kick off on the act was put off by… – Continue reading
HMRC has delisted thousands of overseas schemes that could previously accept pension transfers from Britain HM Revenue and Customs has launched a crackdown on overseas schemes open to UK expats who want to move their pension abroad, with hundreds being removed from its approved list. Australia is one of the… – Continue reading
A corporate tax reform coalition blasted President Obama’s international tax proposals on Tuesday, saying they would accelerate the sort of offshore maneuvers that Democrats want to eliminate. The Alliance for Competitive Taxation said that the White House’s proposal to impose a minimum tax on multinational corporations’ foreign earnings would only… – Continue reading
Following the Financial Crisis of 2007-8, there has naturally been a spike in scrutiny of the banking sector. Many of the practices were condemned as traders were found to be conducting illegal practices in certain cases, there is still much debate about what measures can be taken to fully prevent… – Continue reading
The OECD has backed Guernsey in its fight against tax haven status, describing the crown dependency’s inclusion on the European Commission’s list of top 30 non-compliant tax jurisdictions as “very surprising”. Monica Bhatia, head of the secretariat of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Global Forum on Transparency and… – Continue reading
Lopez Valdes clarifies that only information given by state bodies The implications of the Law Enforcement Tax Accounts Abroad (FATCA for its acronym in English) adopted by the United States in March 2010, has generated unrest globally, because that nation imposes conditionalities that violate laws local. That legislation provides, among… – Continue reading
Access to company data is vital if policymakers are to understand how changing regulatory requirements influence performance Much focus has recently fallen on the issue of tax avoidance, as research on the subject has increasingly shown that the global economy is losing out on billions of dollars to a byzantine… – Continue reading
VANCOUVER, July 6, 2015 /PRNewswire/ – Silver Wheaton Corp. (“Silver Wheaton” or the “Company”) (TSX:SLW) (NYSE: SLW) announces that it has received a proposal letter dated July 6, 2015 (the “Proposal”) from the Canada Revenue Agency (the “CRA”) in which the CRA is proposing to reassess Silver Wheaton under various… – Continue reading
Draft laws bringing corporate tax and value-added tax (VAT) to the United Arab Emirates are expected to be completed later this year, Gulf News has reported. “The draft of the corporate tax law and the value-added tax law has been discussed with the local and federal governments,” said Younis Haji… – Continue reading
The head of South American soccer, who skipped most of the region’s top competition, said he was forced to stay away from the Copa America to deal with the fallout from turmoil in the sport’s global governing body. Juan Angel Napout, in his first English-language interview since the FIFA scandal… – Continue reading
Calcutta, July 5: Singapore and Hong Kong, with their low corporate tax rates, have started to hove into view on the radars of multinational companies that are looking to lower their tax burdens through profit shifting. Profit shifting is a perfectly legal way of moving the earnings of an MNC… – Continue reading
The City of London is the money-laundering centre of the world’s drug trade, according to an internationally acclaimed crime expert. UK banks and financial services have ignored so-called “know your customer” rules designed to curb criminals’ abilities to launder the proceeds of crime, Roberto Saviano warned. Mr Saviano, author of… – Continue reading
BMI View: Montserrat’s economic growth will slow significantly in the coming years as the key financial services sector faces headwinds from an international crackdown on tax havens in the Caribbean. Additionally, th e end of a government programme of capital investment will also temper the island’s economic activity beginning in… – Continue reading
ARBADOS’ CONTROVERSIAL BLACKLISTING by a group of European Union (EU) countries is “hypocritical” and “grossly discriminatory”, says outgoing Barbados International Business Association (BIBA) president Connie Smith. But Smith also thinks the time is right for “engaging in bilateral discussions which could hopefully conclude in double taxation agreements and bilateral investment… – Continue reading
On June 24, 2015, the World Customs Organization (WCO) published the WCO Guide to Customs Valuation and Transfer Pricing (the Guide). The primary purpose of the Guide is to assist customs officials in understanding the relationship between customs valuation and transfer pricing. However, the WCO also recommends members of the… – Continue reading
Congress just approved the intergovernmental agreement between Brazil and the United States for the automatic exchange of financial account information (Legislative Decree 146/2015, published on June 26). According to the terms of the agreement, Brazilian financial institutions (or Brazilian branches of foreign financial institutions) must identify financial accounts of United… – Continue reading
New Zealand-Canada double tax agreement to help investors WELLINGTON, July 2 (Xinhua) — A new double tax agreement between New Zealand and Canada is set to facilitate investment and trade between the two nations, Revenue Minister Todd McClay said Thursday. The new agreement will lower withholding taxes on dividends, interest… – Continue reading
BVI, 2 July 2015 – The Government of the Virgin Islands, through the BVI International Tax Authority of the Ministry of Finance is informing the public that a template has been prepared for the Self Certification Forms required under the United States of America and United Kingdom FATCA Agreements. These… – Continue reading
In an unexpected decision, the United Kingdom Supreme Court has held in Anson v Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs [2015] UKSC 144 that a UK member of a Delaware limited liability company (“LLC”) was entitled to relief under the UK/US double taxation treaty (the “Treaty”) for United States… – Continue reading
Swiss private bank Von Graffenried Holding AG agreed to pay $287,000 to resolve a probe into claims it helped American taxpayers hide assets from authorities, according to the U.S. Justice Department. The Bern-based bank is the 15th to reach an accord with the U.S. over tax evasion under a framework… – Continue reading
Washington, DC—(ENEWSPF)—July 2, 2015. The Department of Justice announced today that Privatbank Von Graffenried AG has reached a resolution under the department’s Swiss Bank The Swiss Bank Program, which was announced on Aug. 29, 2013, provides a path for Swiss banks to resolve potential criminal liabilities in the United States…. – Continue reading
After a four-year ramp up, America’s far-reaching tax law, FATCA – the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (enacted in 2010) – is now in full effect. With over 60 countries (including, most recently, the Vatican) having signed an agreement with the United States related to the enforcement of FATCA, it… – Continue reading
Legal and General has offloaded its Dublin-based offshore business, L&G International, to Canada Life Group for an undisclosed sum. Launched in 2007, the unit was a subsidiary of L&G, based in Dublin. It provides investment and tax planning solutions, primarily focused on the UK high net-worth market. The business has… – Continue reading
