Since Minister Noonan announced in October 2014 that Ireland would introduce a “best-in-class” Knowledge Development Box (“KDB” ), there has been a lot of speculation about ‘how low would he go’. Budget 2016 announced that the rate of tax which will apply for income qualifying under the new KDB will… – Continue reading
The 3 Tax Packages are as follows: 1) Tax package to boost earned income Law: Businesses that increase employee wages will receive a 10 percent tax credit (5% for large corporations) on the portion that was increased, on the condition that wage growth exceeds average growth for the past 3… – Continue reading
JOHANNESBURG – South African has lost R250 billion in the form of service payments over a three-year period, highlighting the significant risk base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) is posing to the country’s tax base, a South African Revenue Service (Sars) official has said. Almost R80 billion of this were… – Continue reading
Germany’s Federal Ministry of Finance on 3 November 2015 released final guidance notes for implementation of the FATCA regime. An intergovernmental agreement (IGA) signed by Germany and the United States follows the Model 1 IGA. Accordingly, financial institutions in Germany are required to report information concerning assets held by U.S…. – Continue reading
A delegation from the UAE’s Ministry of Finance (MoF) is on its official visit to Denmark, where it seeks to strengthen trade relations and sign an agreement on the exchange of information for tax purposes at the Danish Ministry of Taxation. The agreement was signed by Obaid Humaid Al Tayer,… – Continue reading
A question being considered in Australia—concerning country-by-country (CbyC) reporting—is whether an investment entity is to be excluded from the “group” for CbyC reporting purposes. A preliminary position being advanced is when an entity is not required to prepare consolidated financial statements for financial reporting purposes, then it would be excluded… – Continue reading
According to a recent article in the Australian news source Australia’s Clubs Australia is forming an alliance with the American Gaming Association. The common goal of the two organizations is to respond to the number of illegal online gambling web locations which pose the threat of money laundering and possible… – Continue reading
Liechtenstein’s Prime Minister, Adrian Hasler, has welcomed recognition from the international community for its efforts to improve tax transparency. The Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (Global Forum) recently rated Liechtenstein “largely compliant” with Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) standards on tax transparency…. – Continue reading
The European Network on Debt and Development (also known as “Eurodad”), a network of NGOs, has issued a recent report identifying European nations that have served as havens for tax evasion and money laundering. According to the report, Germany, Luxembourg, and Spain are among the most egregious offenders. By turning… – Continue reading
They say the only two givens in life are death and taxes. And, while you still can’t live forever, an increasingly large number of Americans are skipping out on their fiscal obligations by dumping their citizenship. A whopping 1,426 Americans chose to expatriate in the third quarter of this year,… – Continue reading
The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has given its approval today for amending the Double Taxation Avoidance Convention (DTAC) signed between India and Turkmenistan in 1997 for the avoidance of double taxation and for the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income… – Continue reading
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has won a judgement that Rangers’ use of Employee Benefit Trusts (EBTs) broke tax rules. Rangers used the scheme from 2001 until 2010 to give millions of pounds of tax-free loans to players and other staff. In what became known as the “big tax case”,… – Continue reading
Malcolm Turnbull: Tax reform must be fair Fairness is critical to the success of any tax reform, says Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during his first keynote economic address in Melbourne. Courtesy ABC News 24. GST hike to hit poor hard and leave rich unscathed: research Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says… – Continue reading
A Sydney accountant has been convicted and sentenced for his role in advising a client on how to hide funds offshore, resulting in the avoidance of $4.5 million in tax. Following a nine-week trial by jury, Raymond Clifford Osborne, 63, was found guilty on two counts of defrauding the Commonwealth… – Continue reading
Technology company made the largest profit in its history in year to end of September Apple’s latest annual report indicates a substantial increase in the amount of tax it may be paying in Ireland. The latest annual report from Apple, filed last week in the United States, indicates a substantial… – Continue reading
The visit aimed to explore ways of developing and promoting the technical partnership as well as exchanging experience on financial and economic affairs between the two parties. The UAE delegation started off with a visit to the Capital of Norway Oslo, during which the Ministry of Finance (MoF), signed an… – Continue reading
The UK government has a ‘Janus-faced’ approach to tax, a new report suggests: promising an increasingly intolerant approach to evasion and avoidance while being an aggressive participant in global tax competition and tolerating the UK tax havens which facilitate financial crime across the world. The report, Fifty Shades of Tax… – Continue reading
A former finance minister yesterday slammed as “patently false” suggestions by a prominent tax advocacy group that the Bahamas is “disregarding the rules” and flouting global information exchange and transparency standards. James Smith, also an ex-Central Bank governor, hit out at the Tax Justice Network after its 2015 Financial Secrecy… – Continue reading
HM Revenue and Customs is failing to prosecute wealthy tax evaders who hide their fortunes in overseas, MPs have warned, reports the Isle of Man Today. The Commons Public Accounts Committee said HMRC’s record of just 11 prosecutions for offshore tax evasion in the past five years was “woefully inadequate”… – Continue reading
Croatia’s National Bank announced a reduction in the bank discount rate, from 7% per annum to 3% per annum, effective 31 October 2015. This rate reduction has tax implications. Accordingly, for Croatian corporate profit tax law purposes: (1) the maximum amount of deductible interest on loans from a Croatian tax… – Continue reading
The blacklisting of Hong Kong by the European Union is over for the moment with Spain explaining to the EU it didn’t have HK on its list. In the course of investigation, Harbour Times receives a quick response from the Latvian embassy in Beijing to clarify their stance on Hong… – Continue reading
Barbados and Slovakia signed a double tax agreement on October 28, 2015, to boost investment and trade prospects. The DTA allocates taxing rights to the two territories, to ensure that cross-border income is not taxed twice. It further stipulates that cross-border income from dividends will be subject to a withholding… – Continue reading
Sixteen peer review reports were released at the recent plenary meeting of the OECD Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes on October 29-30, 2015. The release of the reports follows reviews of those territories’ legislation for the exchange of tax information and their frameworks for… – Continue reading
The timely and effective implementation of the automatic exchange of tax information was a key theme during the Oct. 29-30 meeting of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes held in Bridgetown, Barbados. The meeting, which brought together delegates from the Global Forum’s 128 member… – Continue reading
PanARMENIAN.Net – The negotiation of a U.S.-Armenia Double Tax Treaty will be on the agenda of the upcoming U.S.-Armenia Economic Task Force meeting, an annual bilateral gathering taking place in Washington, DC on November 19. The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) welcomed the initiative, suggesting that the Administration support… – Continue reading
Eurodad’s country comparison table, showing how each of the studied countries fared in the evaluation of four tax-related categories. Germany, Luxembourg, and Spain are egregious offenders in “supporting an unjust global tax system,” according to a new report from the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad), a network of… – Continue reading
The finance ministry is streamlining safe harbour rules and advance agreements, two mechanisms to determine the price of services rendered by a multinational to its subsidiary in India. Safe harbour rules – directives on margins the tax authorities should accept for the transfer price declared by an assessee – have… – Continue reading
The time of gaming the international tax system is over for big business, following the endorsement of the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project Corporations have to realise that “playtime is over, now you have to come back to school and play with the new instruments”, said Pascal… – Continue reading
04/11/2015 – Uganda today signed the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters. It is the 8th country of the African continent to sign the Convention and the 90th jurisdiction to join it. Her Excellency, Nimisha Janat Madhvani, Uganda’s Ambassador to France, signed the Convention in the presence… – Continue reading
The Income Tax Treaty between Hong Kong and South Africa entered into force on 3 November 2015. The provisions of the Treaty will become effective on 1 April 2016 in Hong Kong and on 1 January 2016 in South Africa. The Treaty was signed in October 2014. In accordance with… – Continue reading
TThe Income and Capital Tax Treaty between Cyprus and Switzerland entered into force on 15 October 2015. The provisions of the treaty will become effective on 1 January 2016. The treaty was signed on 25 July 2014. In accordance with the treaty, the following withholding taxes will apply: Dividends: 0%… – Continue reading
The President of the European Council Donald Tusk and the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, who are representing the European Union at the G20 summit in Antalya (Turkey) on November 15th and 16th, have set out the EU’s agenda in a joint letter sent to EU Heads of… – Continue reading
One year after the announced closing off of the Double Irish tax arrangement, U.S. multinationals once again turned their attention to Dublin as Ireland announced details of the Knowledge Development Box, or KDB. This new component to its corporate tax regime will allow companies to pay a reduced corporate tax… – Continue reading
Whilst the growth of India as an emerging market for foreign investment is nothing new, we are seeing some new trends in the way in which offshore Cayman vehicles are being used as an avenue for investing in that market – specifically, voluntarily registering master funds as regulated master funds… – Continue reading
Treasury says making available documents detailing tax policies tailored for multinational firms would jeopardise ‘open and frank discussions’ The UK has joined Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium in blocking attempts by a committee of MEPs to gain access to secret European archives that detail some of most controversial tax policies… – Continue reading
The Bahamas will likely suffer a 25 per cent contraction in the number of financial services industry players, a senior international private banking executive said yesterday, as institutions merge to acquire scale and maintain profitability. Ricard Tubau, Andbank’s global chief executiv, said that not only is the financial services industry… – Continue reading
Republican lawmakers are sounding the alarm about the Obama administration’s plans for Iran, warning officials are on the verge of waiving tax penalties that make it harder for companies to do business in the country. The administration has not responded to an inquiry from the tax-writing House Ways and Means… – Continue reading
On Wednesday, a federal jury found an Anchorage plastic surgeon guilty of wire fraud and tax evasion after he hid assets worth millions of dollars during his divorce. The trial against Michael Brandner, 67, lasted eight days and resulted in convictions on four counts of wire fraud and three counts… – Continue reading
Today the EU and Andorra initialled the text of a new tax transparency agreement, marking another important step forward in the fight against tax evasion. Under the new agreement, Andorra and EU Member States will automatically exchange information on the financial accounts of each other’s residents from 2018. Pierre Moscovici,… – Continue reading
ABSTRACT This paper provides analysis of one of the foundational elements of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and various intergovernmental agreements (IGAs): an unambiguous place of U.S. birth and the ability to cure (Cure) this element, thereby rendering the account nonreportable. The IGAs generally allow the individual to… – Continue reading
After being in effect for only a week, the Council of the District of Columbia (Council) unanimously enacted legislation today that will repeal the list of tax haven jurisdictions specifically enumerated in the D.C. Code. The legislation, titled the Fiscal Year 2016 Second Budget Support Clarification Emergency Amendment Act of… – Continue reading
On August 4 and 5, 2015, the FC heard oral arguments in a lawsuit—commenced on August 11, 2014 by two Canada-US citizens—that challenges the law implementing the Canada- US intergovernmental agreement (IGA) relating to FATCA (Virginia Hillis et al. v. The Attorney General of Canada et al., court file no…. – Continue reading
LONDON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – British authorities must start reporting the full scale of aggressive tax avoidance and prosecute more people for evading tax by moving money offshore, lawmakers said on Wednesday. The Public Accounts Committee of Britain’s parliament said the government’s tax agency, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), should… – Continue reading
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is “still failing UK taxpayers” because of its “abysmal” performance in dealing with queries from taxpayers. The cross-party committee of MPs stressed that the “unacceptable” quality of HMRC’s customer service is a “genuine threat” to the collection… – Continue reading
Hong Kong is the world’s second least transparent financial center, making it vulnerable to tax evasion, money laundering and other wrongdoing. It is topped only by Switzerland in a global survey by Tax Justice Network, a coalition of researchers and activists focused on tax avoidance issues. The United States ranks… – Continue reading
The number of U.K. prosecutions for offshore tax evasion is “woefully inadequate” and the tax agency, Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, is failing to provide lawmakers with the information they need to close loopholes used for avoidance, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee said. The agency should also publish… – Continue reading
Prime Minister of Mauritius, Anerood Jugnauth, on Tuesday said there will be no revisions to the main provisions of its Double Tax Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) with India as both countries are happy with the existing provisions of the tax treaty. “This treaty between our two countries has been there for… – Continue reading
The UK’s tax authority has made “little or no progress” on revealing the scale of aggressive tax avoidance happening in Britain, an influential committee of MPs has warned. In a report released on Wednesday the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said the tax authority had ignored previous recommendations to provide specific… – Continue reading
Frustrations are mounting, as foreigners keen to do business in New Zealand are getting tangled in red tape aimed at regulating overseas property speculators. EY tax partner, Aaron Quintal, warns the new laws requiring “offshore persons” to have a New Zealand bank account to get an IRD number, are causing… – Continue reading
They say the only certain things in life are death and taxes, but a large number of non-U.S. citizens may have found a way to avoid at least one of those. Under U.S. tax law, the estates of foreign holders of U.S. assets, such as stocks, real estate and valuables,… – Continue reading
