HM Revenue & Customs contacted foreign governments on 490 separate occasions in one year as it sought information on suspected tax evasion, a drop of 150 information requests compared to the previous year. During the 2012-13 tax year, the Revenue made nearly 500 information requests to tax authorities to find… – Continue reading
Ranking Irish officials expressed concern the “double-Irish” corporate tax mechanism was undermining the State’s “international tax credibility” before the Government moved to scrap the loophole in this year’s budget. Newly released records of the influential Tax Strategy Group show officials also took note US president Barack Obama had criticised other… – Continue reading
State prepared to engage constructively with European Commission, says Taoiseach, reports the Irish Times. Ireland remains opposed to the idea of a common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB), Taoiseach Enda Kenny said yesterday, though it is prepared to engage constructively with the European Commission on any new proposal unveiled. The… – Continue reading
(Bloomberg) — Luxembourg’s status as a fortress of wealth in the heart of Europe is in peril. The country transformed itself from a rural economy into the European Union’s richest in less than a century by swapping fields and steel mills for hedge funds and multinationals. That model may now… – Continue reading
European states including Ireland and Luxembourg will be compelled to share information on private tax deals they have granted to multinational businesses under proposals from Brussels to clamp down on corporate tax avoidance. The European Commission was due today to publish reforms aimed at bringing into line rogue member states… – Continue reading
Irish eyes are smiling in corporate America. The Emerald Isle has emerged as the world’s top recipient of U.S. foreign direct investment, according to a report from the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland. In the first nine months of 2014, Ireland beat the likes of Canada, Mexico, the U.K. and… – Continue reading
Giving Northern Ireland politicians the ability to set the province’s rates of corporation tax will help boost the private sector, a minister has said. Baroness Randerson said the move would allow Northern Ireland’s economy to be “rebalanced” away from over-reliance on the public sector. Her comments came as she introduced… – Continue reading
(Reuters) – The European Commission will lay out plans on Wednesday designed to limit tax avoidance in the wake of recent revelations that major corporations were paying minimal state contributions across the European Union. EU members will be required to share information on cross-border tax rulings, according to a draft… – Continue reading
Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny has reiterated his “rock-solid” commitment to the country’s 12.5 percent corporate tax rate. In a speech to the Irish Chamber of Commerce, Atlanta, Kenny said that his Government is “fully committed to pursuing policies that create the ideal conditions for enterprise and investment.” He pointed… – Continue reading
When the Obama administration changed the rules to make it harder for US companies to move their headquarters—and their taxable profits—overseas through the reverse mergers called tax inversions, it put the kibosh on at least one such deal. But now critics of the move say rules have made it easier… – Continue reading
Ireland is facing a fresh threat to its 12.5 per cent corporate tax rate, as MEPs begin investigating low rates across Europe, reports the Irish Independent. A 45-member EU Parliament Tax Inquiry Committee, formed in the wake of the Lux Leaks scandal, has been tasked with investigating various tax arrangements… – Continue reading
The U.S. government’s efforts to collect taxes on American corporations’ overseas earnings that have been shielded by so-called tax inversions may have backfired, triggering a wave of foreign takeovers of American firms, according to a report published Sunday in the Financial Times. To reduce taxes on foreign earnings, corporations based… – Continue reading
The Irish Government has launched its strategy for Ireland’s International Financial Services Sector for the next five years (IFS2020), which seeks to consolidate and grow Ireland’s position as the global location of choice for specialist international financial services (IFS). The strategy includes a comprehensive overview of the existing strengths of… – Continue reading
Permal Group is moving some of its British Virgin Island accounts to Ireland, after the Irish Collective Asset-management Vehicle (ICAV) was signed in to law last week, reports the Asset Servicing Times. The alternative asset manager will move a total of almost US$4 billion from separate accounts to a newly-launched… – Continue reading
The Price We Pay argues that profit-shifting by corporations is undermining democracies A new Canadian documentary draws attention to the profit-shifting tactics used by multinationals to avoid billions of dollars of taxes. Directed by Montrealer Harold Crooks, the film The Price We Pay opens this Friday in Toronto and Montreal,… – 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
You may have noted there’s an election in the offing Worstall on Wednesday As the tech news outlet of record has told us, UK chancellor George Osborne is preparing to bring in the “Google Tax”. Properly known as the Diverted Profits Tax, it is supposed to be a way of… – Continue reading
The Australian Taxation Office should be given the power to ignore multinational transactions that fail to pass the “common sense test” and ensure that technology company profits are taxed where they are earned, the Australia Institute submission to the inquiry into corporate tax avoidance says. The submission takes a swipe… – Continue reading
ARLINGTON, Virginia, March 10, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Bloomberg BNA today announced an addition to its lineup of keynote speakers for the Global Transfer Pricing Conference: Paris, held in conjunction with Baker & McKenzie, on March 30-31 immediately after the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Global Forum on Transfer… – Continue reading
The ECB needs to make sure it isn’t hiding any risky practices that could destabilise the system, reports Irish Times. Fresh from putting the squeeze on banks to behave themselves, regulators are scrutinising so-called shadow banks, alternative lenders such as investment funds doing big business out of countries like Ireland…. – Continue reading
Skip to content Using Gmail with screen readers Click here to enable desktop notifications for Gmail. Learn more Hide 34 of 34 Web Clip Forbes.com: Most popular stories – Volt Vs. Tesla: The Dealership Experience – 7 hours ago ready to post 9 mar 2015 D Ready to post –… – Continue reading
Eleven S&P 500 companies reported profits for calendar 2014 but will be paying no corporate income taxes. Nearly a dozen profitable U.S. companies are paying no corporate income taxes for 2014. A USA Today article on Wednesday said that 11 companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 had an effective… – Continue reading
Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou McDonald insists she was right to name a number of politicians in a dossier of alleged tax evasion in the Dáil last December. She used Dáil privilege to name several former Ministers and TDs. Deputy McDonald says she hasn’t received any letters from either the Ceann… – Continue reading
Ireland has become the top destination for US multinational investment and the economic bond between the countries is only likely to intensify, according to a leading Wall Street economist, reports the Irish Examiner. In a report on the economic relationship between Ireland and the US, compiled for the American Chamber… – Continue reading
You’re probably figuring out how much you owe the tax man for 2014 about now. The answer for a handful of big profitable companies is zilch. There are 11 companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500, including tire maker Goodyear Tire & Rubber (GT), electronic component maker Eaton (ETN) and… – Continue reading
Fiscal competition between EU member states could lead to the disintegration of the European Union, the chairman of the European Parliamentary tax rulings committee has warned In a recent interview, French MEP Alain Lamassoure said that such an outcome would be “unacceptable”. “Fiscal competition can be healthy when it contributes… – Continue reading
Profits outside US exceed non-US sales for company selling $1,000 a pill HepC therapy Gilead Science, whose $1,000-a-pill hepatitis C treatment is one of the world’s most expensive drugs, is avoiding billions of dollars in US taxes by booking profits overseas. The company, which has operations in Ireland, reported foreign… – Continue reading
The Treasury Department’s crackdown on tax inversions last year has slowed but not stopped the movement of U.S. headquarters abroad as American businesses try to reduce tax bills and foreign firms seek to grow. Indeed, with U.S. companies now virtually barred from relocating overseas in order to trim taxes, the… – 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
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
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
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
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
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
Drug firm has come out fighting after allegations it engaged in tax avoidance on an industrial scale Ireland’s largest drug company has come out fighting following allegations that, with its tax adviser PricewaterhouseCoopers, it has engaged in tax avoidance on an industrial scale – as alleged by the public accounts… – Continue reading
Australian retail billionaire Gerry Harvey slammed the country’s powerful business lobby groups for pushing the interests of profit-shifting multinational corporations ahead of Australian companies. Harvey said companies that pay their fair share in taxes have no voice in government. The billionaire retailer spoke after it was publicly revealed that Apple… – Continue reading
A UNITED Nations official has launched a scathing attack on Ireland over its corporation tax regime. Philip Alston, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, accused the country of supplementing the 12.5pc rate with a raft of schemes that appear designed to allow tax avoidance by big… – Continue reading
UN special rapporteur says loopholes and schemes damage Ireland’s reputation The United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights has criticised Irish tax policies which have had a negative impact on poorer and developing countries. Professor Philip Alston has said loopholes and schemes introduced by successive governments have… – Continue reading
Legal & General (L&G) has sold its offshore business to Canada Life. Legal & General International (Ireland) currently has over 4,000 UK offshore bond polices and assets under administration of £2.5 billion. L&G is the latest UK life company to sell its offshore business. In November 2013 Royal London sold… – Continue reading
The Irish Finance Department and the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) are to jointly run a two-year research program covering macroeconomic and tax policy issues. Under an agreement signed by the Department and ESRI, researchers from the Institute will work alongside officials from the Department on various research projects…. – Continue reading
Racehorse trainer says matter is now resolved and company fully tax-compliant Irish racehorse trainer Aidan O’Brien (45) is among the Irish people who feature in the files from HSBC Private Banking in Geneva given to the Revenue Commissioners in 2010. The files indicate that the mail relating to his and… – Continue reading
After several years of delays, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) finally took effect on July 1, 2014. Congress enacted FATCA as part of the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act in 2010 to stop U.S. taxpayers from evading U.S. taxes through undisclosed offshore accounts and investments. FATCA requires… – Continue reading
The Department of Finance recently published the attached public consultation on the ‘Knowledge Development Box’ (“KDB”), inviting submissions before 8 April 2015. This regime was widely publicised in connection with the 2015 Budget and is intended to play a key role in Ireland’s corporate tax regime, as outlined in the… – Continue reading
A swath of changes to corporation tax in the European Commission’s pipeline topped the Taoiseach’s agenda when he met the president of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker officially in Brussels. New rules that would force every country to make public the tax arrangements with larger companies, including multi nationals… – Continue reading
Report skewers PwC for creation of Shire tax shelter it calls ‘tax avoidance on an industrial scale’ Shire’s Ireland address has made the specialty drugmaker a prime takeover target. AbbVie was attracted but dumped the $55 billion buyout when the U.S. Treasury Department threw cold water on the deal with… – Continue reading
Government’s updated strategy aims to add 10,000 jobs to Dublin ’s international financial hub When the International Financial Services Centre began life in 1987 it had just three companies, employing 55 people. If a strategy drawn up for the Government comes to fruition, some 10,000 direct net new jobs will… – Continue reading
More than half of Australia’s trade is money being sent offshore by companies to their overseas arms – with almost a third going to Singapore and Switzerland. Australian companies sent more than $100 billion to related parties in the low-tax nation of Singapore and another $15.6 billion to “hubs” in… – Continue reading
A recent report detailing how Africa lost $US1-trillion in the last 50 years through illicit financial flows of money has raised questions about it’s abilities to curb fraud evasion and other means of corporate profit hiding. It has also sparked interest in holding multinational corporates, which are mainly responsible for… – Continue reading
I realise it’s a bit odd to be writing about the Irish tax system while eating grilled fish at a beach shack in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. I’m in this tax haven to give a speech about the economic challenges facing small countries when old certainties start to… – Continue reading
The government is planning to devolve power over the corporation tax rate to the Northern Ireland assembly. This bold and unprecedented move is intended to enable Northern Ireland to compete with the Irish Republic’s headline rate of 12.5%, and follows the agreement that Scotland should set its own rate for… – Continue reading
