A former Director of Public Prosecutions has accused banking giant HSBC of “grave” cross border crime and of engaging in “a systematic and profitable collusion in serious criminal activity” in the UK. According to the Independent, in a damming intervention Lord Ken Macdonald, who led the Crown Prosecution Service until… – Continue reading
According to Peter Willey, EY’s Channel Islands Head of Tax, the Channel Islands are likely to be impacted by decisions being made now in other jurisdictions. EY recently surveyed its tax policy leaders in 32 jurisdictions to ask them to forecast the tax policy outlook for 2015 in their jurisdiction…. – Continue reading
(Bloomberg) — Swiss prosecutors are scrambling to explain why they took seven years to probe suspicions of money laundering aroused by data stolen from HSBC Holdings Plc’s private bank in Geneva. Inspired by Feb. 8 disclosures by the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists that HSBC did business with arms… – Continue reading
Feb 22 (Reuters) – A new criminal offence should be introduced to clamp down on tax evasion, a senior figure in Britain’s finance ministry said on Sunday in the wake of a scandal surrounding HSBC. Allegations that HSBC’s Swiss private bank helped clients evade tax has pushed the issue to… – Continue reading
Organisations which fail to prevent tax evasion would be subject to stiff fines under a new proposed crackdown, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has said. Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, proposed creating a new offence of “corporate failure to avoid preventing an economic crime”. He said the… – Continue reading
UK, US, Australia, Brazil, India- governments of developed and developing countries are battling profit shifting by MNCs such as Amazon, Google, Apple and Starbucks. The allegation- MNCs are shifting profits to jurisdictions where there is little or no tax to be paid. The solution- OECD’s BEPS action plan which, among… – Continue reading
MUMBAI: The Securities and Exchange Board of India has banned 33 entities for allegedly misusing the stock exchange system to generate fictitious long-term capital gains of over Rs 1,800 crore and for converting their unaccounted income into legal money. Sebi said Kamalakshi Finance Corp (KFCL) made preferential shares to connected… – Continue reading
Certainty and reduced litigation on transfer pricing (TP) issues will be the cornerstone of creating a non-adversarial tax regime in India. The authors believe that Budget 2015 ought to lay out a roadmap to achieve this goal for TP issues – Recent positive progress on the Advance Pricing Agreement (APA)… – Continue reading
Islamabad: Pakistan’s Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has rejected allegations by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader that he transferred $4 million to his son in Dubai to avoid taxes. In an open letter to the PTI chairman Imran Khan, the finance minister also refuted the claim that he has been dragging his… – Continue reading
The economic downturn across the world and rising public debt seems to have led various governments, globally, to focus on curbing erosion of the tax base by shifting profits to overseas jurisdictions. Several revenue authorities, globally, were of the view that companies have structured their intra-group contractual arrangements in a… – Continue reading
India’s decision to negotiate bilateral advance pricing agreements (APAs) with the U.S. is a welcome move. Prospectively, negotiations will increase certainty and uniformity in the application of India’s transfer pricing laws to related-party transactions carried out by U.S. multinational corporations (MNCs). In this article, we discuss some of the important… – Continue reading
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Thursday reiterated its allegations of money laundering against Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, saying he has transferred $4 million to his son in Dubai to avoid taxes. “The biggest investor in this case is our very own Finance Minister Ishaq Dar. He has on record… – Continue reading
Chancellor says the allegations are very serious but that such decisions are a matter for the prosecuting authorities George Osborne has washed his hands of responsibility for prosecutions against people who evaded tax through HSBC Switzerland, as the government came under pressure to justify immunity deals given to those who… – Continue reading
The Business Council of Australia says that the Tax Office is holding company directors and management to account about their tax affairs, despite there only being one company in the nation with a top risk rating. “There is ongoing [Australian Taxation Office] scrutiny of corporate boards,” the BCA said in… – Continue reading
Hervè Falciani, the former HSBC employee who became a whistle-blower by handing over details of client bank accounts to French authorities, triggering investigations into money laundering and tax evasion, believes many other banks are involved in similar practises. In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Stampa, Falciani said that… – Continue reading
Caterpillar, Inc. (CAT), the heavy equipment maker is now under scrutiny as the IRS now demands $1 billion in taxes and penalties. This should come as no shock after the company faced Senate scrutiny in 2014 over its tax plans. Tax Woes The company deals in the designing, manufacturing and… – Continue reading
Under-fire banking giant HSBC will next week report profits of nearly £15billion – or a staggering £40million a day. The group is expected to post annual results for 2014 in line with the previous year when it updates investors on Monday. But the bumper figures are likely to be overshadowed… – Continue reading
Opposition says final withholding tax on property should be reintroduced The Opposition’s shadow ministers for finance and economy, Mario de Marco and Claudio Grech respectively, have called on the government to reintroduce the option of choosing capital gains tax, or a 12% final withholding tax on the sale value of… – Continue reading
It’s been tough for investors in the U.S. to get much income from their portfolios from traditional sources like fixed-income investments, and so dividend stocks have gotten a lot more popular in recent years. Although there are thousands of U.S. stocks that pay dividends, many international companies also have lucrative… – Continue reading
ISLAMABAD: A delegation of British Department for International Development (DFID) and Her Majesty Revenue & Customs (HMRC) will hold dialogue with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on future course of action to further strengthen bilateral cooperation. The DFID is a department of the British government that leads the UK’s… – Continue reading
On 17 July 2013 the Minister of Finance appointed a tax review committee, headed by Judge Dennis Davis (the “Davis Committee”) to make recommendations for possible tax reforms in South Africa (“SA”). The Davis Committee was required to take into account recent international developments and, in particular, to address concerns… – Continue reading
The UK’s Diverted Profits Tax “is being rushed into law for short-term political reasons and against the Government’s own rules on setting business taxes,” the Institute of Directors (IoD) has said. The IoD pointed out that, in 2010, the Coalition introduced a Corporate Tax Road Map, which committed the Government… – Continue reading
Leaks published last week by an international collaboration of journalists revealed how Canary Wharf-based, British bank, HSBC – one of the largest banks in the world – helped wealthy clients evade hundreds of millions of pounds worth of tax. David Leigh, one of the journalists who worked on the investigation… – Continue reading
America is experiencing a significant issue with its number of corporations, with a recent report from the Tax Foundation showing that the number is the lowest it’s been in four decades. The report, titled “America’s Shrinking Corporate Sector,” points to recently released IR data showing there were 1.6 million C… – Continue reading
WHEN the GAAR rule was launched it was one of the government’s first and biggest moves in its battle against tax avoidance, but since its introduction in 2013 the body tasked with enforcing the rule has been distinctly quiet despite claims that companies and their accountants are perpetrating tax avoidance… – Continue reading
The Government of India brought in a retrospective amendment in 2012 to nullify the Supreme Court judgement in the case of Vodafone International Holdings B.V. to tax capital gains arising from transfer of shares or interest in a foreign company deriving its value ‘substantially’ from Indian assets. However, the Government… – Continue reading
PARIS: Singapore and France signed an amended Agreement for the Avoidance of Double Taxation (DTA) to lower withholding tax rates for dividends and new anti-abuse provisions. The most notable changes are the following: Withholding tax rate for dividends is reduced to 5 percent (from 10 percent previously) if the beneficial… – Continue reading
Iran is losing between $12-20 billion a year through tax avoidance and evasion, head of the State Tax Organization Ali Askari says. The loses are equivalent to 20% to 25% of the country’s gross domestic product revenue, he said in comments published in the daily T’aadol. The official says the… – Continue reading
Over the past few years we have seen the introduction of various withholding taxes to the South African tax system. We set out below a high-level summary of the various withholding taxes that are levied in terms of the Income Tax Act 58 of 1962 (the “Act”), their rates and… – Continue reading
A fresh drive by the European Commission to ensure companies pay their tax where they make their profits could have far-reaching consequences for Irish corporate tax revenue. Some new pieces of legislation will be presented over the next few months, but one of the biggest could be the revival of… – Continue reading
The European Commission launched its work on its ambitious agenda to combat tax avoidance and aggressive tax planning. The College of Commissioners held a first orientation debate on possible key actions to ensure a fairer and more transparent approach to taxation in the EU.President Jean-Claude Juncker has made the fight… – Continue reading
Growing trend of chasing ‘high net worth foreign nationals’? Cooperation between HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and foreign tax authorities will only increase as more countries sign up to automatic tax information exchange agreements. This is according to Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, which obtained figures showing a… – Continue reading
The number of requests from foreign governments for tax information from the UK rose by 45 percent in 2013, according to international law firm Pinsent Masons. 2,466 requests were received by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in the year to December 31, 2013, up from 1,701 recorded in 2012. James… – Continue reading
LONDON, Feb. 17 — The tax evasion scandal of HSBC’s Swiss Private Bank has heateddebates on the intactness of banks’ compliance and regulation, as well as the efficiency oftax system here in Britain. Experts believe that it is not an isolated case. The HSBC case is quite different from other… – Continue reading
BERLIN – Geneva prosecutors searched the premises of HSBC’s Swiss subsidiary on Wednesday after launching a money-laundering investigation over a report that the bank helped hide millions of dollars for drug traffickers, arms dealers and celebrities. Prosecutors said they were investigating HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) SA and persons unknown for… – Continue reading
NUMBER OF THE WEEK: 3,415. The number of people who renounced their citizenship in 2014 according to IRS data. This is one of the five highest totals on record since the U.S. Congress passed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act in 2010. In the past five years, more than 10,000… – Continue reading
Those who are subject to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) – financial institutions – and those who have agreed with the US to help make it work – tax administrations – have a chance this week to get a feel for the mechanics of how information will be… – Continue reading
Probes since 2001 into offshore accounts include €4.6m from Irish HSBC customers The Revenue Commissioners has collected just more than €1 billion since 2001 from various special investigations of offshore bank accounts held by Irish residents. This includes the €4.6 million received to date from the holders of offshore accounts… – Continue reading
NEW YORK â?? A founder of famed New York City restaurant Le Périgord faces a potential three-year prison sentence that could take him away from the paragon of traditional French cuisine after he pleaded guilty to hiding income in offshore bank accounts. Georges Briguet, 77, admitted during a Brooklyn federal… – Continue reading
Sen. Bernard Sanders took aim at some of America’s biggest corporations Wednesday in his crusade to raise taxes on the wealthy, accusing the companies of “legalized tax fraud” for using off-shore banks to avoid U.S. taxes. Mr. Sanders, the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, released a report that… – Continue reading
Mumbai: As a probe continues into the misuse of stock markets for evading taxes and laundering black money, 4-5 cartels of market operators have been identified for making illicit gains or showing fictional losses of several thousands of crores of rupees over last 2-3 years. According to sources, both ‘bull’… – Continue reading
Those who are subject to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) – financial institutions – and those who have agreed with the US to help make it work – tax administrations – have a chance this week to get a feel for the mechanics of how information will be… – Continue reading
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union has launched a drive to combat tax evasion following a series of probes into rules that allow multinationals to slash their bills in Luxembourg, Ireland and the Netherlands. The EU’s executive commission said Wednesday that it will propose new tax legislation next month, including… – Continue reading
A team of journalists from 45 nations who investigated documents leaked by a former systems engineer working for banking giant HSBC’s Geneva, Switzerland branch, found HSBC managed secret bank accounts for criminals, drug traffickers, tax dodgers, politicians and celebrities. The documents, covering the period from 2005 to 2007 revealed, according… – Continue reading
CHINA China Releases GAAR Administrative Measures Courtesy of Mr Glen Wei, an attorney at law, certified tax adviser, and CPA based in China.China’s State Administration of Taxation (SAT) on December 12 issued Decree 32 (dated December 2) introducing administrative measures for applying the domestic general anti-avoidance rule to special tax… – Continue reading
News leaked late last week that Swiss banking giant UBS is again under DOJ investigation for aiding tax fraud by U.S. clients. In 2009, UBS pled guilty to a criminal tax conspiracy charge, and received a deferred prosecution agreement. UBS admitted that thousands of unreported and untaxed accounts at the… – Continue reading
This Tax Alert by EY summarizes a recent ruling of the Mumbai Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (Tribunal) in the case of Swiss Re-Insurance Company Ltd. (Taxpayer). The Tribunal ruled that the Taxpayer’s wholly-owned Indian subsidiary (ICo) engaged in carrying out risk assessment services, marketing insurance and providing administrative support for… – Continue reading
The abolition of unfair taxes was one of the foundational principles of Magna Carta, a document that King John assented to on June 15, 1215 at Runnymede, England. Taxation must be fair, and requires the consent of the people. There is no more unfair aspect of fiscal law than retroactive… – Continue reading
The Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility (LDF) has raised little over one third of its £3bn target yield with just over one year left until it is closed As of December 2014, the LDF has raised £1.023bn, just £44m more than in November 2014. Despite this, the number of people using the… – Continue reading
Basel, Switzerland (dpa) – Swiss prosecutors searched HSBC‘s private bank in Geneva Wednesday after launching an investigation into aggravated money laundering against the financial institute. The Geneva prosecution office said it was reacting to last week‘s media reports, which alleged that the Swiss branch of the major British lender helped… – Continue reading
