The Bahamas may have to completely overhaul its corporate and taxation structure to escape European Union/OECD ‘blacklisting’ threats, the Attorney General revealed yesterday. Carl Bethel QC told Tribune Business that the Government was “looking very carefully” at whether compliance with European (EU) demands will require this nation to eliminate the… – Continue reading
The European Union is reportedly threatening to blacklist Antigua and Barbuda if it does not harmonise its tax rates for onshore and offshore financial services. This is according to Prime Minister Gaston Browne who was speaking in the parliament on Tuesday during the presentation of the Automatic Exchange of Financial… – Continue reading
Ahead of the CRS agreement, the procedure enables Israelis to disclose unreported income without facing criminal proceedings. As reported last month by “Globes,” ahead of the anticipated implementation of the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) agreement for automatic exchanges of information between tax authorities, and given the Israel Tax Authority’s stepped… – Continue reading
HAMILTON, Bermuda (CMC) — Bermuda has signed a new tax agreement with the United States that premier David Burt says demonstrates the island’s continued commitment to transparency. Burt, who left here over the weekend for Jamaica, said the Country by Country Competent Authority Agreement signified that the PLP government had… – Continue reading
Laws regulating digital currency exchanges for the first time have been approved by Parliament in a major milestone for the burgeoning local sector. The amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act easily passed through Parliament at the end of last week thanks to bipartisan support, despite the Opposition… – Continue reading
The FINANCIAL — Transfer Pricing Rules were implemented by the Government of Georgia in 2011, based on OECD guidelines. Since the number of international companies in Georgia is increasing steadily, Transfer Pricing Rules have become a point of obvious interest. However, multinational companies operating in Georgia are not sufficiently well-informed… – Continue reading
Treasury Analysis Asserts Tax Cuts Will Pay for Themselves: Today, the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Policy released its analysis of the Senate’s tax reform plan. The one-page report used the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2018 budget projections of a 2.9% real growth rate over 10 years. The analysis expects the… – Continue reading
The Commission has today put forward new guidelines on withholding taxes to help Member States reduce costs and simplify procedures for cross-border investors in the EU. The new Code of Conduct offers solutions for investors who, as a result of how withholding taxes are applied, end up paying taxes twice… – Continue reading
Tax residence gets new rules, support for R&D will increase and the spa industry gets new support instruments. The law on income tax is changing again. The Slovak parliament adopted extensive revisions on December 7, bringing changes in the definition of tax residence, new measures to support the spa industry… – Continue reading
For a nation of nearly 200 million people, not many Nigerians pay taxes. Indeed, as of May 2017, only 14 million—or one in five—of Nigeria’s estimated 70 million economically active citizens were paying taxes. As such, Nigeria’s government has typically earned much less than it could have from taxes. Back… – Continue reading
A Real Madrid star footballer will have to face a court hearing on December 22, accused of evading taxes from 2011 to 2014. MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Real Madrid football club striker and Portuguese national football team forward Cristiano Ronaldo may be fined 30 million euros ($35.3 million) for tax evasion,… – Continue reading
Australian tax rules relating to cryptoassets remain in their infancy, comprising largely of antiquated rules for fiat currency transactions, with impractical attempts at guidance from revenue authorities. This practical guide summarises the Australian tax issues for some typical cryptoasset transactions. In this innovative sector, no two transactions are the same…. – Continue reading
For the first time, the OECD has published a map that sets out countries’ participation and compliance with international tax initiatives, looking specifically at the exchange of information in tax matters, with the old international standard – the exchange of information on request – and the new, on the automatic… – Continue reading
WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland will continue fighting tax evasion, allowing the government to keep public debt in check and finance its public spending agenda, Prime Minister-designate Mateusz Morawiecki said on Friday. He also told the Catholic Trwam television that value added tax revenue would most likely increase by 30 billion… – Continue reading
The Lagos State Internal Revenue Service ( LIRS ) on Thursday shut 11 hotels, restaurants and event centres over alleged failures to remit their taxes under the Hotel Occupancy and Restaurant Consumption Laws of Lagos State 2009. Mr Seyi Alade, Director, Legal Services of the LIRS, said this after a… – Continue reading
A tax bill to counter base erosion and profit shifting by multinational companies was introduced into Parliament on December 6. The Taxation (Neutralising Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) Bill contains measures to prevent multinationals from using: Artificially high interest rates on loans from related parties to shift profits out of… – Continue reading
The American Chamber of Commerce in the European Union has criticized the proposals put forward in the European Commission’s recent consultation on options for new tax rules or a new tax on digital firms. The aim of that consultation is to help the Commission to define an approach to the… – Continue reading
EU ministers have issued the bloc’s “list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes”. The blacklist was created following a November 2016 European Council decision–in the wake of the Panama Papers, Luxleaks and other revelations of multinational tax avoidance–to evaluate jurisdictions outside the EU. Territories were judged on “tax transparency”, “fair… – Continue reading
Blacklisted nations may face sanctions. The European Union released its first-ever “blacklist” of global tax havens this week, including 17 territories, three of which are Arab countries. Deemed to fall short of EU tax standards, the United Arab Emirates, Tunisia, and Bahrain joined American Samoa, Barbados, Grenada, Guam, South Korea,… – Continue reading
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Hong Kong on Monday ratified a treaty signed early this year to stave off double taxation on incomes of their individuals and companies. “Pakistan and Hong Kong SAR (special administrative region) have ratified the avoidance of double taxation and prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes… – Continue reading
[Updated] The Government of Bermuda said they note that the Economic and Financial Affairs Council [ECOFIN] has “reaffirmed Bermuda’s status as a cooperative tax jurisdiction.” Premier David Burt said, “Once again the EU has recognized Bermuda’s status as a cooperative jurisdiction, despite the interest surrounding a hack on a global… – Continue reading
The UK Government has released a consultation on the royalty withholding tax targeting digital firms announced in the UK’s most recent Budget. Under the proposal, the Government intends to introduce legislation in Finance Bill 2018-19 to broaden the circumstances in which certain payments made to non-UK residents have a liability… – Continue reading
Belgian police raided the offices of state bank Belfius as part of a probe into possible tax avoidance by companies exposed in the Panama Papers. Belgian police raided the offices of state bank Belfius on Tuesday as part of a probe into possible tax avoidance by companies exposed in the… – Continue reading
The International Centre for Tax and Development has released a working paper on how to best support developing countries in the area of taxation. The paper says that developing countries would particularly benefit from support in the implementation of two areas that were covered by the OECD’s base erosion and… – Continue reading
On 11 September 2017, His Honour Judge Colin Bishopp handed down his judgement in the case of The Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs –v- (1) Root2tax Limited (2) Root3tax Limited (in liquidation) [2017] UKFTT 0696 (TC). The Root2 judgement concerned HMRC’s application to the First Tier Tax Tribunal… – Continue reading
MINSK, 4 December (BelTA) – The double taxation agreement between Belarus and Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, has come into effect, BelTA learned from the Belarusian Embassy in Beijing. “After Belarus and China went through the necessary domestic procedures, the Belarus-Hong Kong agreement on the avoidance of… – Continue reading
Apple, whose CEO Tim Cook likes to talk a big game about how the tech industry should be more socially responsible while overseeing an international tax-avoidance regime that puts Scrooge McDuck’s gold-filled vault/swimming pool to shame, has agreed to repay Ireland $14.6 billion (around €13 billion) in unpaid taxes, the… – Continue reading
On December 2, the OECD released the first analysis of individual countries’ progress in spontaneously exchanging information on tax rulings in accordance with Action 5 of the BEPS package of measures released in October 2015. The first annual report on the exchange of information on rulings evaluates how 44 countries,… – Continue reading
THE Deputy Prime Minister believes the Bahamas has “done everything we could possibly do” to escape the European Union (EU) ‘tax haven’ blacklist that will be issued tomorrow. K P Turnquest told Tribune Business that the Minnis administration “has no reason to think” this nation will be deemed a ‘non-cooperative… – Continue reading
Government is seeking to pass a bill that will allow for exchange of information on tax activities of business owners who work abroad and also operate in Ghana. The bill which is known as the Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information has been laid before parliament. Speaking to… – Continue reading
South Africa, Jersey, and Belgium are among a handful of territories that have recently announced an extension to the due date for country-by-country reports under the new frameworks being introduced under Action 13 of the OECD’s base erosion and profit shifting Action Plan. The CbC report is one element of… – Continue reading
The Serbian Ministry of Finance has published draft amendments to the Corporate Income Tax Act (CITA), which are expected to be formally approved by the Government within days. If approved by the Parliament, as expected, CITA amendments will take effect from 1 January 2018. The most important novelties concerns recognition… – Continue reading
Coinbase, the world’s largest Bitcoin brokerage and wallet platform, has won a partial but significant victory in its fight against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), as Cointelegraph previously reported. Brief history of Coinbase v. IRS On January 15, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong revealed that the IRS sent the company a… – Continue reading
A new royalty withholding tax will apply from April 2019 where a non-UK resident entity making sales in the UK pays a royalty to a connected party in a low tax jurisdiction, according to a consultation document which sets out further details of the proposal, which was first announced in… – Continue reading
The source said the Milan prosecutors suspected Gucci may have paid taxes on profits generated by sales in Italy in another country with a more favourable tax regime. MILAN – Italian tax police have visited the offices of fashion company Gucci for fiscal checks as part of an investigation by… – Continue reading
The number of outstanding tax treaty related disputes in the UK increased in 2016 by almost 20% from 262 at the beginning of the year to 314 at the end of the year, according to statistics released by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The statistics show the… – Continue reading
“The ceiling on taxation of capital gains reflects the national belief that speculation is a more worthwhile way to make a living than work.” – Calvin Trillin, Uncivil Liberties, 1982. Time was when both death and taxes were considered unavoidable. But in the light of the latest revelations contained in… – Continue reading
The OECD has published additional guidance on the implementation of the country-by-country (CbC) reporting requirement proposed under Action 13 of its base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) project. The guidance, issued on November 30, addresses the following issues: how to report amounts taken from financial statements prepared using fair value… – Continue reading
Bermuda and the UK recently signed an agreement providing for the automatic exchange of country-by-country reports. Bermuda is the first UK Overseas Territory to sign a CbC Competent Authority Agreement with the UK, which enables the automatic reporting of corporate income on a country-by-country basis for UK-related transfer pricing enforcement… – Continue reading
Barbados says it expects to sign the new OECD BEPS Multilateral Instrument at the end of January 2018 to introduce changes to its tax treaty network to prevent base erosion and profit shifting. The “Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS)”… – Continue reading
The Canada Revenue Agency’s recently announced “postal code project” targets Canada’s richest neighbourhoods, to identify non-compliance apparent from discrepancies between residents’ tax reporting with their apparent wealth. Even prior to the postal code project, which focuses on any potential high net worth individual, the CRA had enhanced audit activity on… – Continue reading
The OECD has said that Switzerland’s efforts to meet its international commitments to reform its corporate tax regime are welcome, but noted that there is some uncertainty around the proposed reform package. The OECD has published its latest Economic Survey of Switzerland. In its report, the OECD stated that there… – Continue reading
Island tax expert Greg Jones has issued a warning saying he believes the UK taxman has ‘bulked up’ and is starting to ‘flex his muscles.’ Mr Jones, a director of KPMG at its offices in Athol Street, Douglas, has analysed the UK Budget in this special report for Business News:… – Continue reading
In a world where the creation of schemes to exploit loopholes in global tax laws causes social uproar about ‘hiding money’ (the leaking of the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers being good examples), the recent decision of JSC Mezhdunarodniy Promyshlenniy Bank and another v Pugachev and others [2017] EWHC 2426… – Continue reading
(Washington, D.C., Wednesday, November 29, 2017) – Senator Rand Paul is prepared to offer his FATCA repeal legislation, S. 869, as an amendment to the Senate’s tax reform bill. The Center for Freedom and Prosperity applauds this news and urges full-fledged support from his colleagues. The Foreign Account Tax Compliance… – Continue reading
Hong Kong recently finalized a series of agreements that, taken together, shift Asia’s trade and investment landscape. On November 12, Hong Kong and ASEAN signed the ASEAN-Hong Kong, China Free Trade Agreement (AHKFTA), and the ASEAN-Hong Kong Investment Agreement (AHKIA). Prior to this, on November 10, Hong Kong and India… – Continue reading
A FORMER financial services minister yesterday said global regulatory initiatives appear designed to force the Bahamas to adopt a corporate/personal income tax alien to its culture. Ryan Pinder, who held this position in the Christie Cabinet from 2012 to late 2014, told Tribune Business that the likes of the European… – Continue reading
The International Monetary Fund has said Trinidad and Tobago needs to further hike taxes. The territory has struggled due to low energy prices. Energy revenue accounted for only 27 percent of total government revenue in the 2015 fiscal year, compared to around 55 percent during the preceding decade. A new… – Continue reading
The OECD’s Global Forum recently adopted a plan of action to help developing countries participate in and benefit from the automatic exchange of financial account information for tax purposes. Under the plan, developing countries have been invited to undergo a preliminary assessment of their capacity to implement the Common Reporting… – Continue reading
NEW DELHI The Indian Income Tax Department will accept applications for Mutual Agreement Procedure (MAP) in transfer pricing disputes, as well as for bilateral Advance Pricing Agreements (APAs), even for entities resident in countries with which India has double taxation avoidance agreements (DTAA), minus the provision to claim corresponding tax… – Continue reading
