A top insurance industry boss believes that a tax on company profits is inevitable – and would be in the long-term interests of the Island’s people and its economy. John Charman, the chairman and chief executive officer of Bermuda-based Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd, said the levying of corporate tax would… – Continue reading
The ongoing global initiatives around exchange of tax information and publication of beneficial ownership information, while ostensibly in pursuit of transparency, have their origins in the need for the larger, richer countries to increase tax revenues, and the perception that taxpayers are hiding assets abroad and out of the tax… – Continue reading
Under a plan baked into the White House’s budget for 2016, U.S. corporations would theoretically be forced to pay hundreds of billions in new taxes on money kept abroad. Levying fees on the $2.1 trillion in funds largely held by shell companies through an accounting trick called deferral, the move,… – Continue reading
Argentina has sent requests for information to tax authorities in the Virgin Islands, Uruguay and Bermuda, according to a Reuters report. This comes as Argentina wants HSBC Holdings Plc to repatriate some $3.5 billion that it says the bank’s Argentine branch moved offshore to help clients evade taxes and move… – Continue reading
The Virgin Islands’ financial services industry continues to be heavily criticized through media reports, but Executive Director of the recently formed BVI Finance, Mr Kedrick Malone believes the attacks are politically motivated, reports BVI Platinum. “I think a lot of the media you are seeing is politically motivated. It is… – Continue reading
Microsoft and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) have agreed to end their battle over documents used in transfer pricing audits of the tech company. On February 24, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Microsoft reached an agreement which resulted in the dismissal of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit… – Continue reading
Bermuda and other international financial centres are “routinely attacked and demonised” in Europe, according to Bermuda’s top financial regulator, reports the Royal Gazette. Jeremy Cox, chief executive officer of the Bermuda Monetary Authority, said in opening remarks in the BMA’s Business Plan 2015, published today, that it was “time for… – Continue reading
Mental health charities and senior journalists took to social media to urge newspapers to think carefully about how they report suicides, after the Daily Telegraph published a story concerning the death of two employees at News UK, the publisher of the Times and the Sun. On Twitter and various online… – 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
Nova Ltd. is geting set to host a breakfast briefing at the Argus Building, in the Spirit of Bermuda conference room, on February 24, 2015 from 8.30am to 10.00am. A spokesperson said, “The briefing will cover how their unique share registry solution, called Quantum Share Registry Solution [Quantum SRS], can… – Continue reading
The Manx government will not officially respond to Labour leader Ed Miliband’s ultimatum on beneficial ownership. Mr Miliband has threatened to place on an international blacklist any Crown Dependency or British Overseas Territory that fails to produce a public register of company beneficial ownership within six months of Labour coming… – Continue reading
AMSTERDAM: Google shifted nearly €10bn in royalties to the tax haven of Bermuda via the Netherlands in 2013. That is almost €1bn up on 2012, the paper says. It bases its claims on an analysis of the annual reports of Dutch-registered Google Netherlands Holdings BV. Over €9bn came from Google… – Continue reading
Bermuda’s well-documented financial services regulation, international partnership treaties, and lack of bank secrecy legislation ought to be recognised by the UK Labour Party, the Bermuda Business Development Agency (BDA) said today. The BDA echoed the Bermuda Government’s weekend response to UK Opposition Leader Ed Miliband following a warning letter issued… – Continue reading
(Reuters) – When a series of big U.S. companies last year moved to reincorporate abroad in inversion deals, some Republican lawmakers and tax policy critics blamed the high U.S. corporate tax rate. Lowering it, they said, would keep companies from fleeing the country. But a Reuters analysis of the taxes… – Continue reading
HAMILTON, Bermuda, February 7, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — The Government of Bermuda notes the reported comments of Mr Edward Miliband, Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition in the UK, in relation to tax avoidance and British Overseas Territories (OT), and his wish to enforce better levels of transparency and disclosure should he… – Continue reading
A Labour government would push for UK overseas territories to be put on an international blacklist if they refuse to co-operate with a drive against tax avoidance, Ed Miliband has told them. In a letter to their leaders, he said they would have six months to compile a public register… – Continue reading
(Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama will propose that U.S.-based companies pay a minimum 19 percent tax on their future foreign earnings, capturing profits that are now often beyond the government’s reach. Obama will also seek a 14 percent mandatory tax on about $2 trillion in stockpiled offshore profits, said two… – Continue reading
A Sunday Mirror investigation has found Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Ebay and Starbucks has paid less than one per cent tax Six of the world’s biggest companies paid just 0.3 per cent of their UK earnings in corporation tax last year, a Sunday Mirror probe has found. We have examined… – Continue reading
In November 2012, a startled TV audience watched coverage of the House of Commons Select Committee questioning Google’s chief executive about why his business, with ostensibly billions of pounds in sales generated in the UK, accounted for UK corporation tax in an amount equivalent to the price of a single… – Continue reading
In November 2012, a startled TV audience watched coverage of the House of Commons Select Committee questioning Google’s chief executive about why his business, with ostensibly billions of pounds in sales generated in the UK, accounted for UK corporation tax in an amount equivalent to the price of a single… – Continue reading
Observers of offshore financial centres will know that post 2008 they have been weathering a perfect storm. Firstly, reduced transactional flows, simply because there is less money available for structured finance and investment generally. Secondly, a constant barrage of negative publicity, which deliberately seeks to conflate tax evasion and tax… – Continue reading
(Bloomberg) -– So how did the previously obscure term tax inversions become part of Washington parlance, fodder for the next presidential campaign and the issue that helped derail a U.S. Treasury nominee? Thank, or blame, depending on your perspective, cutting-edge tax lawyers, populist Democrats, a banana seller, a drugmaker, a… – Continue reading
(Reuters) – Credit Suisse said its offices in Milan were searched by Italian tax police last month, following media reports of an investigation into whether a Bermuda subsidiary of the bank helped wealthy Italians hide undeclared funds. The searches follow a series of investigations against Swiss banks, including Credit Suisse,… – Continue reading
Countries are competing to lower their tax rates to please the corporate giants, but the result is a massive collective loss of revenue. Only international coordination can wipe out the practice and defeat the negative influence of the Big Four accounting firms. Tax havens have long existed in the popular… – Continue reading
The Internal Revenue Service has sued former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and a slate of other former and current executives, seeking to compel them to testify in a long-running investigation into how the company’s sales through subsidiaries affected its taxable income. The Internal Revenue Service has sued former Microsoft Chief… – Continue reading
In August, President Barack Obama pledged to use the powers of his office to discourage the corporate tax-avoidance technique known as inversion, in which U.S. companies claim foreign tax addresses. Four months earlier, according to a previously unreported legal document, his Department of Homeland Security did just the opposite. It… – Continue reading
There has been a recent surge in anti-tax inversion legislation discouraging companies attempting to shift corporate subsidiaries or headquarters to low-tax or tax-free countries. The issue was subjected to a great deal of publicity in April 2014 during the failed hostile takeover by Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) for AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN) when Pfizer… – Continue reading
(CNS Business): The British government has published draft legislation for a new Diverted Profits Tax (DPT), dubbed the “Google tax”, by which it intends to sidestep Britain’s existing tax treaties with low-tax jurisdictions by levying a charge that would fall outside the corporate tax system. The government hopes to raise… – Continue reading
Think tank targets key aspects of Republic’s role in multinationals’ tax affairs Key features of Ireland’s role in the tax affairs of major technology companies such as Google and Microsoft are being targeted by the OECD’s base-erosion and profit-shifting (Beps) project, it has emerged. Ideas being worked on by the… – Continue reading
The total number of new company registrations increased across offshore jurisdictions in the first half of 2014, according to Appleby, a provider of offshore legal, fiduciary and administration services. In the first half of 2014, there were 46,455 new offshore company incorporations, representing a 4% increase on the preceding six… – Continue reading
Bermuda’s Minister of Finance, Bob Richards, has snubbed the UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s plan to create public registers of beneficial owners of companies incorporated in Bermuda. His reasoning behind this update was that this move would be damaging to the economy as Bermuda would lose it’s competitive advantage. He… – Continue reading
Something strange happened in 2014 — Americans became very interested in corporate tax policy. It started in the spring, when U.S.-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which produces blockbuster drugs like Lipitor and Viagra, floated a possible merger with its British-based rival AstraZeneca. Normally a merger of that size would make a… – Continue reading
The surge in U.S. companies avoiding taxes by taking a foreign address has been condemned by President Barack Obama and stirred a policy debate in Congress. What’s often overlooked is that these “inversions” are typically a final step in a hopscotch of multinational tax dodging. Many companies invert after years… – Continue reading
Dec. 15— The Internal Revenue Service filed a petition in U.S. district court to enforce a summons against Microsoft Corp. to produce “books, records, papers and other data” related to the pricing of intangibles under two cost-sharing arrangements (United States v. Microsoft Corp., W.D. Wash., No. 2:14-mc-00117, petition filed 12/11/14)…. – Continue reading
Around the world, countries are desperately seeking ways to stop multinational companies from earning profits within their borders without paying taxes on them, while stashing trillions in tax havens like the Cayman Islands. The British government, after a search, says it knows how to tax the profits Google earns in… – Continue reading
When the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Johns Hopkins University and other Maryland nonprofits want to maximize the money they can spend in pursuit of their missions, they do what many wealthy individuals and businesses do. They open investment accounts overseas. Many of Maryland’s wealthiest nonprofits — including the University of… – Continue reading
MONTREAL – The problem is not that Bombardier Inc. played a complex shell game since at least 2010 by refinancing and redirecting US$500 million of its financing activities to Luxembourg, a notorious tax haven. It’s that it does so legally — and is hurting its home country despite being one… – Continue reading
Jeb Bush, a front-runner to become the Republican Party’s next presidential nominee, has used Britain to set up a private equity fund that could possibly allow it to avoid paying tax in America. The potentially damaging revelation was uncovered by the financial news wire Bloomberg and could pose a serious… – Continue reading
THE map below shows the change between 2011 and 2012 in the number of subsidiaries disclosed by listed American companies. The data were provided to The Economist by Jeff Gramlich of the Hoops Institute at Washington State University. Only those firms that had reported at least ten subsidiaries located in… – Continue reading
This publication provides a brief overview of the expected impact on entities established in Bermuda of (a) the foreign account tax compliance provisions (“FATCA”) of the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act, 2010 of the United States of America (the “US”); and (b) equivalent rules implemented in relation to United… – Continue reading
It feels like FATCA has been around for years already, yet some companies are still coming to terms with its implications. However, as Kirsten Morel explains, impending deadlines are now creating a real sense of urgency It’s four years since US Congress enacted the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA),… – Continue reading
The lead article in The Sunday Times Business section today (authored by Simon Duke and David Smith) says that Britain is at the forefront of a crackdown on corporate tax avoidance – a blitz on tax avoidance by multinationals. The UK Treasury is planning a consultation on forcing multinationals like… – Continue reading
Small- and medium-sized firms are unprepared for tough new US tax reporting legislation, a survey has found. Software firm Blue Bison, part of the Ignition group of companies, found that more than half of respondents to its readiness survey admitted that understanding the requirements of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance… – Continue reading
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has nominated global tax avoidance as one of the key issues on the agenda for this weekend’s G20 summit in Brisbane. Major companies including Google and Apple have faced strong criticism over their efforts to lower their tax bills by shifting profits to jurisdictions with low… – Continue reading
Another sophisticated loophole in the tax system means the removal of the “Double Irish” tax-avoidance strategy won’t actually have any real impact for US firms in Ireland seeking to lower their tax bills. An influential US tax journal has found that the Irish subsidiaries of US companies can easily opt… – Continue reading
Financial institutions based in certain British Overseas Territories (BOTs) and Crown Dependencies (CDs) will be subject to stricter reporting requirements covering accounts held with them by UK resident non-UK domiciled taxpayers from 2016 if specific “carve outs” are not negotiated, an expert has said.31 Oct 2014 Private wealth tax Tax… – Continue reading
The government may have revealed the names of three black money account holders, but will it be able to get the money back or catch big fishes who have stashed the illegal money in tax havens across the globe. As of now it seems impossible. With at least three different… – Continue reading
The Treasury Department has spent millions of dollars on federal contracts for companies that have shifted their legal address abroad, even as the Obama administration pushes to rein in the practice. Just last month, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew moved to limit the appeal of those tax deals, known as inversions,… – Continue reading
Green Left Weekly and ActionAid will be co-sponsoring a Political Economy Society seminar at Sydney University on October 29 to discuss the case for greater international efforts to combat corporate tax avoidance before the G20 summit. Large corporations systematically avoid paying the statutory level of company tax — a low… – Continue reading
Internet giant plays down speculation it is considering closing Bermudan arm Google has played down speculation in France that it is considering shutting its Bermudan arm and boosting its operations in Dublin, following the closure of the Double Irish tax loophole in last week’s budget. Le Monde yesterday reported that… – Continue reading
