KARACHI: Federal budget for fiscal year 2015-16 (FY 16) is apparently hinting government is interested in promoting black money or trying to force decent tax paying investors to invest in real estate sector, stock brokers say. Instead of giving incentives, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has dismayed taxpayer investors by increasing… – Continue reading
The Bank of Israel audit finds failures and negligence in oversight at Bank Leumi. Failures, mistakes, negligence in oversight: these are only some of the terms used by Supervisor of Banks David Zaken to describe the findings of an audit conducted in recent months on the conduct of Bank Leumi… – Continue reading
Financial institutions around the world must ‘get their act together’ for the introduction of the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard (CRS) in seven months, Linedata has warned. Justin Hayes, product manager at the international software provider, dubbed the automatic exchange agreement between an initial 58 countries “FATCA on steroids’ and an… – Continue reading
Property and casualty insurance companies in Canada are pushing more of their risks to reinsurers that aren’t federally regulated and are often located offshore, and Canada’s most powerful financial services regulator has become concerned enough to conduct a probe of the scope of this business. The Office of the Superintendent… – Continue reading
Error meant that BBC Trust was not told in advance about creation of two companies designed to benefit from creative industry tax credits The BBC Trust has fired a warning shot over the bows of the corporation’s executives, calling on them to “have regard to the BBC’s reputation” following public… – Continue reading
He has distorted the facts about the nation’s current tax system. Chris Christie repeatedly has said that U.S. corporations are taxed twice on income earned abroad, claiming in one speech that IRS officials “don’t recognize the tax you paid to a foreign country.” That’s false. It’s true that the U.S…. – Continue reading
The new law on the taxation of controlled foreign companies (the ‘CFC’ law) and other anti-offshore measures effective as of 1 January 2015 have raised a number of questions for clients and advisers. A number of changes to the new laws were long anticipated and have now been passed by… – Continue reading
Iceland’s head of tax fraud investigation has completed the purchase of tax records from tax havens around the world. Bryndís Kristjánsdóttir spent ISK 30 million (EUR 200,000/USD 225,000) of public money on the tax records which give the Directorate of Internal Revenue the chance to go over data connected to… – Continue reading
EU regulators’ investigations into the low tax arrangements of Apple (AAPL.O), Starbucks (SBUX.O) and Amazon (AMZN.O) in some member states are at an advanced stage and decisions could be announced in the coming months, a senior European Commission official said on Thursday. The investigations centre on Luxembourg’s tax rulings for… – Continue reading
Transfer pricing has emerged as a key focus area both globally and locally. From an international scene, the OECD/G20 venture — a club of advanced countries in Europe and North America, has been working on action plans to help tax administrations deal with Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project…. – Continue reading
The Swiss Federal Council has submitted to Parliament dispatches on the implementation of the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters and the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (MCAA), reports Tax News. Developed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development… – Continue reading
On May 24, Premier Li Keqiang and a delegation of Chinese senior officials arrived in Chile. During the visit, China and Chile signed a double taxation avoidance agreement (DTA), updated their Free Trade Agreement and agreed on setting up an RMB clearing center in Chile, reports China Briefing. China and… – Continue reading
Governments around the world could find themselves under-resourced when the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act deadline for collecting information on US clients arrives in September, one expert has said. Ellen Zimiles, managing director, head of global investigations at US firm Navigant, said governments will be handed an “unprecedented” amount of… – Continue reading
The Internal Revenue Service Wednesday reminded taxpayers with offshore accounts of two important June deadlines related to Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts filings and the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. All taxpayers with a FBAR filing requirement must report their foreign assets by June 30, with those taxpayers living abroad… – Continue reading
The number of voluntary disclosures of offshore income and assets to Canada’s tax authority nearly doubled in the year ended March 31 from the previous 12 months, the first time such figures have been gathered since the Canada Revenue Agency put in a whistleblower reward system to root out tax… – Continue reading
Dubai: The word offshore banking often evokes quite a number of unsavoury connotations. It’s associated with tax evasion, money laundering and high-level of secrecy, but the truth is that anyone can open an offshore bank account and it’s completely legal. Most expatriates set up a bank account offshore to protect… – Continue reading
(Reuters) – Some large wealth managers feel the time is not ripe to start an onshore private bank in China, despite steps taken by Beijing to open up its financial services industry. Ownership restrictions and a relatively less developed capital market are impediments for Citigroup to start onshore private banking… – Continue reading
Speaking at the Insurance Day 2015 Summit on 10 June 2015, Minister of Finance Bob Richards told attendees that “the more we drive home that the insurance sector in Bermuda is not a stereotypical tax haven gimmick to key onshore decision makers the less the threat from IRS and other… – Continue reading
SINGAPORE, June 11 (IFR) – By selling what market sources say is the first offshore bond from a Chinese trust company, Zhongrong International Trust has opened a new funding route for the country’s shadow banks as they look to expand overseas. Zhongrong, China’s second largest trust company in asset terms,… – Continue reading
Part I of this series of articles reviewed some of the basic tax requirements for using trusts to split income, Part II discussed a number of tax planning opportunities that can be accessible through the use of trusts, and Part III reviewed traditional testamentary trust income splitting planning and the… – Continue reading
VATICAN CITY – The Vatican has agreed to share tax information with the United States in its latest move to improve the reputation of its scandal-marred bank and crack down on tax cheats. Vatican and U.S. officials signed an agreement Wednesday in which the Holy See committed to comply with… – Continue reading
Multinational firms said to be ‘cheating’ African countries out of billions of dollars that could be used for health care and education. G7 leaders Monday pledged to reform the international tax system by minimizing transfer pricing, according to Public Finance International. Transfer pricing involves internal transactions between a large company’s… – Continue reading
Dirty money resulting from crime, corruption and tax evasion is estimated to cost over one trillion dollars every year. It exacerbates poverty and inequality, and should be regarded as one of the most pressing issues globally. An Oxfam report found that G7-based companies and investors cheat Africa out of tens… – Continue reading
The Barcelona forward is now due to stand trial on accusations he defrauded authorities Lionel Messi’s appeal against allegations of tax evasion has been thrown out by a Barcelona court and the Argentina star will now stand trial. The Blaugrana forward and his father and agent, Jorge Messi, are accused… – Continue reading
The Cayman Islands saw a 17 percent increase in new company registrations in 2014 over the previous year, according to a report released today by offshore law and fiduciary firm Appleby. In 2014, 11,010 new companies registered in Cayman, noted the firm’s latest ‘On the Register’ report, which provides insight… – Continue reading
THE North-East is becoming a “dustbin” for Scottish rubbish because of devolution, one of the region’s MPs has warned. Kevan Jones, the North Durham MP, said a “commendable” Scottish initiative to boost recycling had backfired by sending waste across the border instead, sometimes illegally. And he warned the problem was… – Continue reading
The Luxembourg Tax Authorities have confirmed that the deadline for FATCA reporting with respect to financial accounts as of 31 December 2014 has been extended from 30 June 2015 to 31 July 2015. The FATCA Agreement (Model 1) between Luxembourg and the United States was signed on 28 March 2014…. – Continue reading
Sydney, 10 June (Argus) — The Australian government has released legislation to tighten rules governing corporate taxation such as the use of offshore tax havens. The bill is not aimed at any particular sector of the economy, but several resource and commodity companies have come under scrutiny following a Senate… – Continue reading
Minister of Financial Services the Hon. Hope Strachan said international best practices are evolving at a rapid pace, particularly as it relates to automatic tax exchange initiatives, tax transparency, anti-money laundering and financial crime, and e-commerce, reports the Bahamas Weekly. Making her contribution to the 2015 Budget Debate in the… – Continue reading
The Diverted Profits Tax (DPT), known by many as the “Google Tax”, is intended to stop large groups diverting profits from the UK by seeking to avoid creating a UK permanent establishment or using arrangements or entities which lack economic substance to exploit tax mismatches. Tax mismatches occur where intra-group… – Continue reading
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has updated its guidance on the Employment Allowance in light of media reports of an attempted avoidance scheme designed to exploit the allowance. Under the Employment Allowance, employers can reduce the amount of National Insurance contributions (NICs) they pay for their employees by up to… – Continue reading
Maryland residents who pay income tax to other states may be entitled to a refund of local income taxes paid in prior tax years. The U.S. Supreme Court in Comptroller of the Treasury of Maryland v. Wynne et ux. recently affirmed a Maryland Court of Appeals ruling that the state’s… – Continue reading
Heads of state meeting at the G7 Summit in Bavaria, Germany committed to promoting automatic exchange of tax information and tax rulings to discourage multinational companies from shifting profits from country to country to avoid taxes, reports Accounting Today. In a joint declaration, the G7 leaders reaffirmed their commitment to… – Continue reading
ISLAMABAD: A district and sessions court on Monday handed over 17 Axact employees here on physical remand over their alleged involvement in fraudulent practices, issuing fake degrees, money laundering and deceiving the public by acting as student counsellors. Civil judge Islamabad Rasool Bakhsh sent the suspects on physical remand for… – Continue reading
The UK tax body, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), has completed a successful trial of Google Apps and will be rolling out the service to more of its staff throughout the year, reports The Register. HMRC has 70,000 staff, and as such will be Whitehall’s first mass deployment of… – Continue reading
Swiss banks that aren’t dependent on the country’s crumbling financial secrecy laws may find international expansion easier than those that sold hidden accounts in the past, according to Switzerland’s financial supervisor. “The shift away from businesses which rely on some elements of banking secrecy is changing the perception” of Swiss… – Continue reading
Hong Kong, as a world financial centre, will undertake legislative changes to implement automatic exchange of information of account holders Exchange of information is a recognised tool to enhance tax transparency and combat cross-border tax evasion. As a major financial centre, Hong Kong is committed to following global standards. While… – Continue reading
The Argentine Supreme Court ruling on Toepfer International, a commodity exporting firm, has finally been published, tw o months after the decision, providing lessons for BEPS action 10 (cross border commodity transactions). This case, AFIP v Alfred C Toepfer Internacional, belongs to the first group of three controversies, related to… – Continue reading
Individuals who renew their US passport need to take into consideration that their Social Security Number (SSN) and country of residency will be forwarded to the IRS. Since July 2014, the passport renewal instructions forms have dedicated a specific paragraph detailing this new procedure: “Section 6039E of the Internal Revenue… – Continue reading
An archaic rule in the UK tax system means non-domiciled individuals ( “non-doms”) can be born and raised in the UK and pay less tax than their UK citizen counterparts. A person inherits their domicile at birth. Non-dom status will be triggered where a person’s father or grandfather was born… – Continue reading
Most people do not believe big companies pay their fair share of tax, according research from energy giant SSE and ICAS, the Scottish accountancy institute. The YouGov study of 2000 adults found only a third of people think most big businesses in the UK pay their fair share of tax,… – Continue reading
LONDON — Like other global institutions, HSBC, Europe’s largest bank, has been under severe pressure since the 2008 financial crisis to cut costs, meet stringent new regulatory demands and satisfy restless shareholders. To that end, the British bank said on Tuesday that it would shed as many as 50,000 of… – Continue reading
NEW DELHI — India’s goal of a friendlier tax regime for global companies to help power China-beating economic growth is hitting a manpower hurdle. Fewer than 20 officials face the complex task of working with hundreds of multinationals on pacts to avert tax rows, people familiar with the matter said,… – Continue reading
A special scheme is provided for foreign-securities holding companies or ETVEs (Entidades de Tenencia de Valores Extranjeros) in the Corporate Income Tax (“CIT”) Act 27/2014. ETVEs are regular limited liability companies (S.L., S.A. or other company forms), subject to the normal CIT on its income, but exempt from taxation on… – Continue reading
FOCUS: Now that the first devolved Scottish taxes have come into force, the rest of the UK will be watching with interest to see how new tax authority Revenue Scotland manages and deals with avoidance risks. Much of this interest will be on how the new Scottish General Anti-Avoidance Rule… – Continue reading
A new report from the Internal Revenue Service indicated that the upper-echelon of wealth is hoarding more money than we initially thought, reported The Washington Post. We all know how much money the one-percent hoards, but what about the top one-thousandth percent? To be apart of that group, one must… – Continue reading
ABU DHABI // The UAE aims to increase the presence of diplomatic missions in Africa, said Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, Foreign Minister, at the first meeting of UAE ambassadors and heads of representative missions on Tuesday. Sheikh Abdullah said the meeting, in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, enriched diplomatic work… – Continue reading
Prime minister says he has proof he is innocent of charges of money laundering and tax evasion while president calls for his resignation Victor Ponta, Romania’s prime minister, said on Tuesday that he was prepared to go to court to answer charges of money-laundering, forgery and tax evasion as the… – Continue reading
Zhongrong International Trust became the first issuer from the Chinese trust industry to venture into the offshore bond markets on Monday with a $225 million three¬year transaction. Over the past decade trust companies have become the second largest segment of China’s financial sector behind commercial banks, racking up assets of… – Continue reading
In November 2014 the WikiLeaks scandal known as “LuxLeaks”, the large scale exposure of over 340 companies (such as IKEA, Coca-Cola and Disney) who paid a rate of one per cent or less tax on profits moved to Luxembourg by advance pricing arrangements has affected all nationalities and brought the… – Continue reading
