The European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (CESI) has said that the proposed country-by-country reporting (CbCR) requirements are insufficient, and added that an extended CbCR, disclosure of tax rulings, and whistle-blower protection are key to ensuring corporate tax transparency. In its response to the public consultation on corporate tax transparency… – Continue reading
The question for many expats is in Australia is if switching their UK pension to a Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme (QROPS) is worthwhile? Tax is a personal issue and no one-size-fits-all solution is available, but here are some general pointers to how pensions are taxed in different financial centres… – Continue reading
Victoria Seychelles — Promoting cooperation between African countries and increasing trade and industry have been the main focus of diplomatic work of the outgoing Nigerian High Commissioner to Seychelles, Solomon Akintola Oyateru, during his term in office. High Commissioner Oyateru made this statement in an interview with the press at… – Continue reading
Administrators of tax-qualified retirement plans (or their delegated payor) are responsible for both withholding on distributions and for reporting the tax withheld. If taxes are under-withheld, the administrator/delegated payor may be subject to penalties. Although the rules governing withholding on distributions to US citizens and resident aliens are clear and… – Continue reading
(ZIZ News) — Tuesday’s sitting of the National Assembly featured heated debates on the Foreign Account Tax Compliance (United States of America) (Implementation and Enforcement of InterGovernmental Agreement) Bill 2015. Prime Minister, Hon. Dr. Timothy Harris, who sought leave to have the bill read a first and second time, was… – Continue reading
Google’s CEO may be “proud” of the way his company avoids taxes, but a Canadian tax watchdog group thinks the tech giant’s tax practices should disqualify it from partnering in a Canadian election debate. The Globe and Mail is hosting a leaders’ debate on the economy Thursday night in partnership… – Continue reading
“Luxembourg is famous for two things: its steel industry and its rose cultivation industry”. This quote from an Italian guidebook of the 1930s was uttered by Luxembourg’s Finance Minister Pierre Gramegna at the annual conference of the Luxembourg Directors’ Association on 17 June 2015[1]. The economic outlook of the tiny… – Continue reading
The Department of Justice announced today that Bank La Roche & Co AG has reached a resolution under the department’s Swiss Bank Program. “Today’s agreement is yet another example of a foreign financial institution coming forward, acknowledging its criminal conduct, taking the necessary steps to resolve its criminal exposure, cooperating… – Continue reading
The number of banks with deferred prosecution agreements with the U.S. government keeps growing. The subject is tax evasion involving American account holders. Today, under FATCA, banks everywhere want to know if you are compliant with the IRS. And the IRS keeps updating its list of foreign banks where offshore… – Continue reading
Kenneth Leung (PC,F-Accountancy) explains what he – and the government – are doing to get Hong Kong off the EU’s undeserved blacklisting as a “non-cooperative tax jurisdiction”. Why has Hong Kong been placed on this list? There are ten European countries that have named Hong Kong as a tax haven…. – Continue reading
Is Xi Jinping (習近平)’s anti-corruption campaign crushing it or embarrassingly ineffective? You make the call. It was widely reported the year before Xi assumed office that upwards of 18,000 corrupt officials had fled China since 1990 with about US$120 billion. In early 2012, the Ministry of Supervision released figures saying… – Continue reading
On July 9, 2015, India and the US signed an agreement to implement the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) that will facilitate exchange of information between the two countries starting on October 1, 2015. FATCA was signed by Revenue Secretary Shaktikanta Das and US Ambassador Richard Verma in New… – Continue reading
Belgian financial institutions have more time to comply with their reporting requirements under the FATCA regime. FATCA reporting for 2014 must be completed prior to the 10th day following the publication of the Belgian FATCA law in the Belgian official gazette. Currently, the law has not been enacted, but it… – Continue reading
An increasing number of Americans renounced their citizenship and cut-off long term residencies during the initial three months of 2015 due to a crackdown in the foreign tax rules. The exit wave went down a little in the second half, but has continued. The Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department… – Continue reading
Note: This article was published by Bloomberg BNA in Tax Planning International European Tax Service Vol. 17 No. 7 July 2015 Introduction The recent LuxLeaks scandal has once again focused political attention on tax planning practices of multinationals (“MNEs”). It comes in the wake of the European Commission investigation of… – Continue reading
New Article L. 62 A of the French tax procedure code (published in the official bulletin on 2 September 2015) sets forth rules that effectively regularize the tax treatment of certain profits transferred abroad by French taxpayers, and allows for the repatriation of these funds without additional tax—and in particular,… – Continue reading
There are often a few major issues on everyone’s lips in the international community of tax lawyers. This was the case also at The International Fiscal Association’s (IFA) 69th Congress in Basel, Switzerland. One of the main subjects in the congress was how tax payers’ rights can be most efficiently… – Continue reading
The estates of high net-worth individuals often cross borders. They might reside in one country, with assets in that country and elsewhere, and possibly family members residing are in other countries for work, education, or lifestyle reasons. The tax resulting from death can be quite harsh to their estate or… – Continue reading
Seven leading Democrat lawmakers wrote a letter on September 12 to US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew urging him to publish an annual list of companies that have undertaken corporate tax inversions, and to use the Administration’s executive authority further to discourage the use of inversion techniques. Tax inversion techniques are… – Continue reading
Greece would be much better off if the government could collect the taxes owed by the self-employed. That’s the lesson from a paper released this month that uses an innovative method of capturing tax evasion. Estimating shadow economies is tough. Friedrich Schneider of the Johannes Kepler University of Linz in… – Continue reading
The decree of 2015 in accordance with the Assessment and Collection of Taxes Law (Exchange of Information within the framework of the Agreement for the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) has been issued and published in the official Gazette of the Republic of Cyprus dated 28th August 2015 (Decree 281/2015)… – Continue reading
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has used its Accelerated Payments powers to collect GBP1bn (USD710m) from users of tax avoidance schemes. HMRC began sending Accelerated Payment Notices (APNs) to UK users of certain tax avoidance schemes in August 2014. The notices give recipients 90 days to pay the tax in… – Continue reading
Luxembourg recently published a bill to implement the new anti-hybrid rule and the general anti-abuse rule (GAAR) of the EU Parent Subsidiary Directive (PSD). The bill closely follows the wording of the PSD. A similar Dutch bill is expected on 15 September 2015. While the Dutch bill may differ from… – Continue reading
Fraudster Timothy Charles Pratten has been found guilty on seven counts of obtaining a financial advantage by deception, in the Supreme Court of NSW in Sydney this week. Justice Stephen Rothman found Pratten, A 55-year-old insurance broker, failed to properly declare income of more than $5 million between 2003 and… – Continue reading
The Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is like a global think tank for advancing ideas and policy for the leading developed nations. Based in Paris with 2,500 staff, the OECD gathers social and economic data from member states which is analysed, discussed and edited into digests with recommendations… – Continue reading
It may be a common misunderstanding that a U.S. citizen or permanent resident (Green Card holder) can give up their citizenship or surrender their Green Card and then as a non-U.S. taxpayer make gifts or pass their estate to U.S. taxpayers free of estate and gift tax. The IRS recognized… – Continue reading
Before the economic crash, OECD reports on its member countries focused on the structural problems afflicting the individual economies, be it the dominance of a national telecoms company or so-called sheltered areas of the economy which didn’t face competition, including the professions such as lawyers or pharmacists. Even mild recommendations… – Continue reading
The trickery of hiding assets while paying millions in legal fees emphasises the case for a solid pre-nup says Vanessa Friend A High Court judge has penalised a husband for his ‘blatant dishonesty’ by ordering him to pay all of his wife’s divorce costs of £344,000. Sir Peter Singer said… – Continue reading
The UK government’s use of ‘accelerated payment notices’ (APNs) to demand up-front payment of disputed tax has enabled it to collect £1 billion in payments from users of tax avoidance schemes, it has announced.14 Sep 2015 HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has issued over 25,000 APNs since August 2014 to… – Continue reading
Taipei, Sept. 14 (CNA) The Kuomintang (KMT) government will be prioritizing passage of a cross-strait agreement on double taxation avoidance as well as bills on the budget, government restructuring and an all-volunteer military in the fall legislative session that opens Tuesday, Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) said Monday. Mao said the… – Continue reading
The value-added tax (VAT) system could boost tax revenue by an additional LE30 billion if implemented instead of the current sales tax system, according to a new study by the Egyptian Centre for Economic Studies (ECES). The study profers that the introduction of VAT would lead to a one time… – Continue reading
Many countries have enacted a patent box regime in order to spur innovation and create domestic manufacturing jobs. Simply stated, a patent box regime provides a lower tax rate on income from the exploitation of patented goods than for other income. Among the countries that have patent box regimes are… – Continue reading
Apple’s CEO Tim Cook announced on Wednesday, Sept.9, that the famed brand’s revenue significantly increased in China by up to 75 percent in the past year. However, the country’s finance authorities cut the celebration short. China’s Ministry of Finance demanded Apple to pay 452 million yuan, a price equivalent to… – Continue reading
BARBADOS’ OFFSHORE FINANCIAL SERVICES SECTOR is again under threat. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), G20 and the European Union (EU) are acting in concert, armed with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and the Common Reporting Standard (CRS). Once implemented, the confidentiality which once protected financial… – Continue reading
EU commissioner urges member states to ensure fair share of tax is paid EU economics commissioner Pierre Moscovici reiterated his commitment to re-launch the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base yesterday, urging all EU member states to ensure that companies pay their fair share of tax. Speaking following a meeting of… – Continue reading
Multinationals have come under fire yet again over their tax arrangements in some European countries, as the continent moves closer to a pan-European regime to combat tax avoidance. On Friday, European economy and finance ministers and central bankers (known as an ECOFIN meeting) gathered in Luxembourg to discuss what the… – Continue reading
With the agreement with the US, Vietnam has now signed the double taxation avoidance agreements with 70 out of 170 countries and territories with which Vietnam has trade and investment relations. Double taxation is considered a barrier to trade and investment. It discourages transnational investments while prompts individuals and businesses… – Continue reading
Speaking at an informal meeting of the Economic and Financial Affairs (ECOFIN) in Luxembourg, Finance Minister Edward Scicluna once again expressed Malta’s opposition to tax harmonization. “Taxation remains a sensitive area for Malta, not only because of its obvious role in the revenue collection process, but also as an important… – Continue reading
Panama in May 2014 indicated its intentions to enter into an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) with the United States, for purposes of implementing the FATCA regime. The Panama agreement would follow the Model 1 IGA. As of early September 2015, Panama has yet to sign the IGA. In preparing for implementation… – Continue reading
A government committee on financial sector reforms has finalised a report, broadly outlining the amendments required in financial laws and taxation to make domestic sector more competitive in the international market. Sources in the know said the report was submitted on Tuesday by the Standing Council of Experts, which was… – Continue reading
Madrid, Sep 10 (EFE) .- Spanish Finance Minister Cristobal Montoro and his Qatari counterpart Ali Sharif Al-Amadi have signed an agreement on Thursday to avoid double taxation and tax evasion. The Spanish Ministry of Economy and Finance explained through a statement that this deal can be applied to taxes on… – Continue reading
PwC has acquired software company Ellis Financial Systems in a bid to more rapidly meet new tax information reporting required under such regimes as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). It has been re-named PwC Tax Information Reporting, and will operate from London. The acquisition represents one of many… – Continue reading
An initiative intended to catch tax dodgers could have a negative impact on those with perfectly legitimate bank accounts. Tax expert Howard Bilton offers advice The draconian Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), introduced by the US Government to tackle tax evasion by its citizens, has already affected Britons living… – Continue reading
Indonesians hold $300 billion in Singapore; controversial tax amnesty on the cards. Indonesia’s finance minister Bambang Brodjonegoro told Euromoney earlier this year that tax collection falls way short of targets and must improve to provide funding for infrastructure and other projects It doesn’t take much for Indonesia’s government officials to… – Continue reading
The finance ministers of 11 euro zone countries willing to introduce a financial transactions tax (FTT) are expected to make progress on the thorny issue in a meeting on Saturday in Luxembourg, Italy’s economy minister said. Germany and France proposed the tax in 2012, in the midst of the euro… – Continue reading
HA NOI (VNS) — The Ministry of Finance has proposed to increase special consumption tax on imported goods to ensure fair competition between locally manufactured products and imported ones. Under the current regulations, the special consumption tax on imported goods is calculated keeping in mind their cost, insurance, and freight… – Continue reading
India’s Ministry of Finance, Department of Revenue (Foreign Tax and Tax Research Division) on 31 August 2015 released guidance notes with respect to implementation of the reporting requirements under rules 114F to 114H of the Income tax rules. Rules 114F to 114H implement the intergovernmental agreement (IGA) between India and… – Continue reading
As traders are set to stage a strike on Wednesday (today) following a call given by the All Pakistan Anjuman-e-Tajran against the withholding tax on banking transactions, Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry has supported the traders and decided to join the strike. Traders’ leaders warned that the protest could… – Continue reading
After reopening investigation into HSBC clients hiding money in Switzerland, HMRC admits it has still only prosecuted one tax cheat, reports The Guardian. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is winding down its inquiries into hundreds of British customers who used HSBC’s Swiss bank to evade tax, a senior official has… – Continue reading
Policies are urgently needed for the legalization of the underground economy,” said Representative Oh Je-se of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy, who belongs to the Planning and Financial Committee of the National Assembly on Sept. 10. Rep. Oh added that Korea places sixth among OECD member countries in terms… – Continue reading
