The fee for individuals to renounce U.S. citizenship is jumping to $2,350 as of Sept. 12—more than five times the current charge of $450. The U.S. State Department, in its explanation for the increase, said that documenting a renunciation is “extremely costly” and requires a minimum of two intensive interviews with… – Continue reading
Years before Burger King sized up a Canadian headquarters in a hunt for lower taxes, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike McFadden’s investment firm was involved in a merger that moved an American pharmaceutical company to Ireland and significantly dropped its tax rate. McFadden’s Minnesota-based firm made more than $11 million,… – Continue reading
A high ranking Spanish politician has claimed that the Spanish government misses out on EUR1bn (USD1.3bn) of tax revenues each year as a result of Gibraltar’s tax regime. Iñigo Méndez de Vigo, Spain’s Secretary of State for the European Union (EU), made the claim during an interview with the country’s… – Continue reading
Microsoft is avoiding paying billions in taxes—and it’s not the only one. a subsidiary of a foreign company, so the firm has not technically engaged in the so-called “inversion” scheme that President Obama and Democrats have lately been criticizing. However, according to a 2012 U.S. Senate investigation, the company has… – Continue reading
The Obama administration is employing an ObamaCare contractor that was once based in the tax haven of Bermuda, even as it assails corporations for lacking the “economic patriotism” to pay taxes. Accenture was awarded a contract in January that’s now grown to well over $100 million to make improvements to… – Continue reading
[ZURICH] SWISS banks have suffered from a massive outflow of funds since 2008, a survey said on Friday, squeezed by an international crackdown on tax evasion. The survey by auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers attributed much of the outflow – totalling almost 350 billion Swiss francs (S$474 billion) – to customers paying fines… – Continue reading
Agreement comes into force at beginning of 2015, also states that Holocaust survivors are exempt from taxes on compensation. By Efrat Neuman | Aug. 29, 2014 | 12:47 PM While war was raging between Israel and Hamas, Finance Minister Yair Lapid made a low-profile trip to Germany this month, officially… – Continue reading
The Enforcement Directorate, which is probing the money laundering aspect of the multi-crore Saradha scam, has for the first time found evidence of the money being parked in offshore accounts. The ED sleuths, sources said, have found that Santanu Ghosh, chairman of Xenitis Group and an accused in the scam,… – Continue reading
They say Wolf is dodging taxes by shifting money to income-tax-free Delaware. Bringing business inside Delaware’s borders is big. Sixty percent of all public companies are incorporated there – just miles from Pennsylvania. It’s also home to Weidner University’s Institute of Delaware Corporate and Business Law. Professor Lawarence Hamermesh is… – Continue reading
THE SNP’s plans to cut corporation tax could turn an independent Scotland into a tax haven for multinational companies like Google and Microsoft, Labour’s finance spokesman Iain Gray has claimed. He said Scotland would lose out on jobs and investment as companies used the country to channel money and avoid… – Continue reading
PRWEB.COM NewswireWashington, D.C. (PRWEB) August 28, 2014 A new trend in the offshore banking regime has emerged. Many banks located around the world are sending letters to their accountholders seeking personal information to confirm whether the account holder is a U.S. citizen or a U.S. resident. In the letters,… – Continue reading
In its ongoing efforts to control tax evasion, China’s State Administration of Taxation (SAT) has recently published an instruction (Tax Office General Fa [2014] No 146), calling on national and local tax bureaus to investigate transfer pricing practices of Chinese enterprises. Under scrutiny by the SAT are all transactions involving… – Continue reading
Malta’s High Net Worth Individual Rules for EU, which carried a minimum property investment of €400,000, has been replaced by the Global Residence Programme, with an entry point as low as €220,000 Malta has announced a new residency programme for EU nationals – and has halved the minimum property purchase… – Continue reading
Burger King’s announcement that it will move its headquarters to Canada has put the spotlight on that country’s tax system. However, the tax benefits of doing business in Canada, as opposed to doing business in the U.S. are not well-known. First, Canada has a much lower corporate tax rate: 15… – Continue reading
Cape Town – Tax evasion is not only a crime against the state, it is also a crime against the people of South Africa, says Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa. Ramaphosa has now called on South Africans who are aware of tax evasion by individuals or companies to report them to… – Continue reading
MOSCOW, August 28 (RIA Novosti) – A number of Russian banks have received fake US tax service requests, demanding the disclosure of information about their American clients and their accounts in accordance with the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), Kommersant newspaper reported Thursday. The newspaper obtained a letter… – Continue reading
Banks in Switzerland lost 350 billion Swiss francs ($383 billion) from foreign clients over the past six years amid an international crackdown on offshore tax evasion, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers AG. Foreign clients withdrew as much as 100 billion francs to pay fines to governments in their countries of residence, PwC… – Continue reading
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has not requested for negotiations on exchange of information for restitution of any ill-gotten money presumably stashed in Swiss banks, said Swiss Ambassador to Pakistan and Afghanistan Marc George on Monday. The statement from the Swiss ambassador follows claims by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar that talks would be held with… – Continue reading
This article was first published in the 2nd quarter 2014 edition of Personal Finance magazine. Most people accept that they have to pay taxes in their country of residence. But citizens of the United States and green card holders who live outside that country – even if they have never… – Continue reading
The organisation hails the capture of five more of its most wanted as “excellent news for all honest taxpayers”. Five of the UK’s top tax fugitives have been brought back to the UK to face justice following a global HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) initiative, the organisation has said. HMRC… – Continue reading
A US technology executive has rejected suggestions Ireland is merely seen as a tax haven for major American multinationals. McAfee senior vice-president, Patty Hatter, who previously worked with AT&T and Cisco, ranks as one of the most powerful female executives in California’s Silicon Valley. She insisted that the attractiveness of… – Continue reading
You’ll have to forgive Amazon for getting a little flustered when the British Parliament publicly blasted the company for “gaming the system” to dodge paying taxes. Amazon is an American company. They’re used to far more deferential treatment. Responding to how the company paid only $7 million in taxes despite… – Continue reading
Expat savers dealing with unfamiliar banks are unlikely to know how much of their cash is protected if the foreign bank goes bust. In Britain, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) safeguards up to £85,000 held by each person in accounts under a single banking licence. Each building society has… – Continue reading
BEIRUT: Some bankers have said that European states are expected to follow the example of the United States and ask their citizens abroad to disclose their bank accounts to European financial authorities in a bid to combat tax evasion. “It’s not official yet but we expect some European countries to adopt similar… – Continue reading
I n July, the American pharmaceutical giant AbbVie, maker of the world’s top-selling drug – the arthritis treatment Humira – reached a blockbuster deal to acquire European rival Shire, best known for the attention-deficit medication Adderall. The merger was cheered by Wall Street, not for what the deal will do… – Continue reading
Ottawa (27 Aug. 2014)—Premiers and territorial leaders in Charlottetown for the Council of the Federation need to demand the federal government and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) stem the flow of Canadian money offshore because it is depleting revenues by at least $7.8 billion each year. Retrieving that money could… – Continue reading
An effort to control tax havens for those hiding their assets overseas has resulted in broad brush impacts on hard-working expatriate Americans living and working out of country. The previously delayed Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is now in full swing effective July 1, 2014. In an attempt to close a… – Continue reading
Pictet & Cie. Group SCA, Switzerland’s biggest closely held bank, increased assets under management six percent in the first half, as narrowing margins and a U.S. tax program led some competitors to sell or downsize. Managed assets grew to 319 billion Swiss francs ($348 billion) from 301 billion francs, Pictet said… – Continue reading
Juan Martin del Potro denies he has committed tax evasion in his native Argentina. His spokesman Jorge Viale said Monday there was “no evasion” and all procedural steps were being followed to resolve the case. The newspaper Perfil reported on Sunday that Argentine tax authorities had opened a case again… – Continue reading
The Ministry of Strategy and Finance announced on August 25 that the Korean and Vietnamese governments provisionally signed a revised double tax avoidance agreement during the fourth round of negotiations. The amended agreement takes effect early next year, through official signing and ratification in the near future. According to the… – Continue reading
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Switzerland will begin technical level negotiations in Bern on Tuesday for revision of ‘Swiss-Pakistan Convention for the Avoidance of Double Taxation’ to enable the treaty to create an environment for better trade and investment between the two countries. The three-day meeting is being held on the request… – Continue reading
Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid and his German counterpart, Wolfgang Schäuble, signed a revised German-Israeli double taxation agreement in Berlin on August 21, 2014, according to a recent announcement from the German finance ministry. The convention, which was last amended in 1977, has been adapted to make it correspond to… – Continue reading
MUSCAT The agreement to avoid double taxation and prevent tax evasion between Oman and Japan is to come into effect from September 1. Japan’s official gazette has announced the agreement between the Government of Japan and the Government of the Sultanate of Oman for the ‘Avoidance of Double Taxation and… – Continue reading
FRANCISTOWN: Government’s negotiations with other countries to sign Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements (DTAA) are underway to ensure investor benefits from tax holiday incentives continue, Boniface Mphetlhe of Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) has said. The Deputy Permanent Secretary in MTI, Mphetlhe, was speaking on the topic of Botswana Investment… – Continue reading
VP Bank said it had now concluded that it no longer needed to take part in the programme. “Thorough internal investigations and external expert opinions showed that the conditions for continued participation did not exist,” the Liechtenstein-based bank said in a statement accompanying its half-year results. “VP Bank therefore withdrew… – Continue reading
An innocuously named species of transaction has inspired a political furor this summer. After a number of U.S. companies announced plans to move overseas in so-called inversion deals, Sen. Carl Levin proposed banning them outright. President Barack Obama called the companies unpatriotic. Because of the controversy, Walgreen Co. backed away… – Continue reading
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) was enacted into law as part of the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act of 2010. Its purpose was designed to prevent U.S. taxpayers from “hiding” under the cover of a foreign based entity or trust in evading U.S. income tax and… – Continue reading
Twitter is the latest major internet multinational to have opened up a Spanish subsidiary. But the popular micro-blogging site has followed in the footsteps of Google, Apple, Facebook and Linkedin, all of whom keep their Spanish corporate taxes down to the bare minimum by shifting their income to Ireland. Created… – Continue reading
The average temperature in Miami is 67 degrees in January. In Ontario, January temperatures range from an average low of 17 to a high of 33. But Burger King plans to pull up stakes in Miami and move its headquarters to Ontario. That reflects a frigid business climate in the… – Continue reading
According to Canada’s finance minister, the country’s corporate tax rate has dropped from 20% to 15% since the Conservative government took office in 2006. The U.S. tax rate is 35%, making the tax advantage for Burger King’s move to Canada a central part of the deal. Cutting corporate tax payments… – Continue reading
WASHINGTON — Two top Republican lawmakers profited from a corporate tax-avoidance maneuver that the Treasury Department is seeking to curb. While House Speaker John Boehner, Ohio, and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, Mich., have resisted calls for a crackdown on companies adopting overseas addresses to pay lower taxes,… – Continue reading
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) was enacted into law as part of the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act of 2010. Its purpose was designed to prevent U.S. taxpayers from “hiding” under the cover of a foreign based entity or trust in evading U.S. income tax and… – Continue reading
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is consulting on the design of a proposed new strict liability criminal offence for those who fail to declare taxable offshore income and gains. Under the plans, magistrates could be given the power to impose an unlimited financial penalty and a custodial sentence of up… – Continue reading
WEALTHY South Africans’ banking needs have changed in the past decade as exchange-control regulations have eased, and they have found themselves forging complex relationships with multiple global financial service providers. A wealthy South African might have a private bank and investment banking relationship domestically, as well as offshore banking and… – Continue reading
With all the talk about inversions and America’s Burger King Going Canadian, it’s easy to ignore even more prevalent tax savings by numerous American companies. Take Microsoft, which admits in its 2014 SEC filing that it avoids $30 billion in U.S. taxes. The trick? Keep about triple that amount, $93… – Continue reading
Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) has been in force for a month and still more countries are joining the tax network. So far, 101 countries and financial jurisdictions have either signed or agreed to join FATCA. FATCA is aimed at identifying US taxpayers with offshore bank accounts and investments. Overseas… – Continue reading
This article, by Chris Horlacher, was originally published by The Dollar Vigilante. Many Canadians, referred to as snowbirds, spend three to six months each year in the United States. If they think to consult a tax adviser at all, they’re usually told that as long as they spend less than… – Continue reading
(Editor’s note: As the summer holidays wind down, we thought readers might appreciate a chance to revisit some of the stronger, and more controversial, items that have been published on this news channel since the start of what has been an eventful year.) Since the financial crisis, governments worldwide have… – Continue reading
Microsoft’s stash of cash stored overseas, not subject to US taxes, is growing. In its latest regulatory filing, the software giant said it has now stockpiled $92.9 billion offshore and that this money could have cost the company $29.6 billion in taxes, but didn’t. That compares to $76.4 billion from… – Continue reading
David Glen, head of tax at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Scotland, analyses the effects independence will have on Scottish taxes. While it is obvious that a Yes vote will result in substantial change to the tax system, as Scotland begins to develop its own independent tax regime, perhaps what is less clear… – Continue reading
