Presidency sent to Congress ratification of treaties with Jersey, Guernsey, the Cayman Islands and Uruguay; text follows the G20 guidelines The Presidency referred for evaluation of Congress four agreements for the exchange of tax information (TIEA, which stands for the English term “Tax Information Exchange Agreement”) entered into with Uruguay,… – Continue reading
The Common Reporting Standard (“CRS”) will impose new investor due diligence and reporting obligations on funds and other financial institutions based in “early adopter” participating jurisdictions, with effect from January 1, 2016. According to the OECD, all major financial centres have now signed up to the standard. Financial institutions should… – Continue reading
Mexico and Argentina have signed an agreement for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income and capital. The agreement allocates taxing rights to the two countries, to avoid taxation being levied twice on the same income from companies and individuals… – Continue reading
The New Zealand foreign trust regime – its use in international wealth planning The New Zealand “foreign trust” regime came into being over 25 years ago. It arose from a domestic initiative to make the use of offshore trusts for tax minimisation more difficult for New Zealand residents, by imposing… – Continue reading
“In 2013 the OECD, supported by the G20, promised to bring an end to international corporate tax avoidance which costs countries around the world billions in tax revenues each year. However, with the recently announced actions against corporate tax dodging, G20 and OECD countries have failed to live up to… – Continue reading
Headline: G20 among biggest losers in large-scale tax abuse – but poor countries relatively hardest hit G20 countries are the biggest losers when US multinationals avoid paying taxes where they do business. This is the main finding of a new report on the global tax system, ‘Still Broken,’ released by… – Continue reading
Article by Patrick W Martin and Ashley Fife With a net worth of USD77.1 billion, Mexican telecoms businessman Carlos Slim Helú was ranked the second richest person in the world in a 2015 survey.1 At the end of 2014, 16 of Mexico’s citizens were on Forbes’ billionaires list.2 As for… – Continue reading
Two decades after Ken Dart renounced his U.S. citizenship and took his tax attorney with him to the Caribbean, the billionaire bond investor and local kingpin is reinventing himself as the Cayman Islands’ biggest real estate owner. In a rare glimpse into Dart’s holdings, Mark VanDevelde, chief executive of the… – Continue reading
Transfer pricing by multinationals has cost South Africa an estimated R250 billion over three years and, with it, lost tax revenue. This is according to Sunia Manik, group executive for the large business centre at the SA Revenue Service (Sars), adding that it was being done through “service payments” made… – Continue reading
Paul Singer has a good track record as a money manager. In 1995, he bought $20 million worth of Peruvian debt at a discounted price of $11.4 million, then forced Peru’s government, through lawsuits, to eventually pay nearly five times his initial investment — some $58 million. In 2002 and… – 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 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
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
Major implementation milestones are being met by members of the world’s leading forum on tax transparency as the international community continues to move ahead towards greater tax transparency. The imminent shift to the automatic exchange of information will send a strong warning to tax evaders. Significant strides towards a major… – Continue reading
Robert Stack, US Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary (International Tax Affairs), initiated a further push for ratification of the pending protocol to the US tax treaty with Switzerland at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on October 29. Tax treaties and protocols with Switzerland, Luxembourg, Hungary, Chile, Spain,… – Continue reading
Javier Mascherano appeared in court on Thursday and the Barcelona star has admitted to tax evasion. Barcelona midfielder Javier Mascherano has pleaded guilty to tax evasion after appearing at a Spanish court on Thursday. The Argentina star was accused of failing to alert Spanish authorities to earnings totalling more than… – Continue reading
Blast waves: smoke billows from the site of an explosion that reduced a parking lot filled with new cars to charred remains at a warehouse in northeastern China’s Tianjin municipality. Most of Bermuda’s major insurers and reinsurers had significant exposures to this disaster. (Photograph by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo) Tianjin… – Continue reading
Bern, 10.29.2015 – The double taxation agreement (DTA) in the area of taxes on income and on capital between Switzerland and Argentina is on 27 November 2015 to enter into force after the ratification procedures in Switzerland has been completed. It will replace the agreement of 1997 and corresponds to… – Continue reading
Republican and Democratic lawmakers vowed on Thursday to push for the ratification of eight tax treaties which have been held up for years because of one Republican senator’s objections, despite support from companies that want consistency in rules for how to do international business. U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky… – Continue reading
RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) — Brazil’s Secretariat of Federal Revenue is carrying out an official investigation of Eduardo Cunha, head of House of Representatives, for tax evasion and other fiscal crimes, local daily O Globo said on Wednesday. Started in August, the investigation was based on information which… – Continue reading
Australia’s corporate tax rate is higher than the global average, according to KPMG’s 2015 global tax rate survey, SmartCompany reports. While Australia’s corporate tax rate currently sits at 30 per cent, the global average sits at 23.68 per cent. The United States has the highest corporate tax rate at 40… – Continue reading
(CNS Business): The use of Cayman Islands funds as a wealth management tool for high net worth Latin American families was debated last week at the STEP LatAm Conference in Brazil, where kidnapping is a constant worry for the wealthy and demand for outbound investments is fuelled by privacy and… – Continue reading
Herve Falciani, the Frenchman wanted on charges of industrial espionage in Switzerland, has opted to skip his trial at the country’s top court and instead plead his case before a jury of journalists at a French hotel, less than a mile from the Swiss border. The Frenchman was the star… – Continue reading
Following the recent Irish budget statement (the “Budget”), the Finance Bill 2015 (the “Bill”) has been published and it implements the changes announced by the Irish Minister for Finance (the “Minister”). The Bill includes additional detail on: the new knowledge development box (“KDB”); and Ireland’s implementation of country by country… – Continue reading
Brazil has reduced from 20 percent to 17 percent the maximum income tax rate required to designate a location that meets the other requirements as a low-tax jurisdiction for transfer pricing and other tax purposes. The change was made via Ordinance 488/2014 of the Ministry of Finance, published in the… – Continue reading
Taxation of Profits of Controlled Foreign Companies (CFC): Double Taxation Conventions must prevail over domestic rules The Superior Court of Justice (STJ) has recently decided a case involving the applicability of Brazilian CFC rules in cases in which the controlled company is located in a country with which Brazil has… – Continue reading
Provisional Measure No. 692/2015 increases the income tax rate on capital gains earned by individuals and certain companies1 from 15% to 15%-30%. As from January 1st, 2016, when the new rules will become applicable, capital gains earned on the sale or disposition of any assets or rights located in Brazil… – Continue reading
Foreign companies with Indian shareholders won’t have to pay taxes here for their worldwide income unless they are managed from India on an everyday basis. If these foreign companies are managed from outside India, whether or not they are promoted by resident Indians, they will have to pay taxes in… – Continue reading
OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria, “Base Erosion and profit Shift (BEPS) to Combat Action Plan” s stated would be the most radical reforms in international taxation system, “BEPS Action Plan, Turkey will be one of the biggest acts in and heritage in the G20 presidency” he said. Gurria, recently in… – Continue reading
Leading family offices in Latin America and the Caribbean are going through a transitional period, says Steven Cantor, managing partner of Cantor & Webb, a Miami-based law firm, reports the Financial Times. “As the world moves to tax transparency, with a crackdown on undisclosed tax savings in Swiss bank accounts,… – Continue reading
The “Evasion in the financial system” film is a documentary directed by former minister of Culture Jorge Coscia. It is based on the information leaked in the media by Hervé Falciani, an ex-employee of HSBC’s Swiss private bank, on clients and their tax situation. The C5N news channel aired this… – Continue reading
Pascal Saint-Amans sups water from a plastic cup, coughing and spluttering. There’s a weariness about him. He’s battling a cold, and is feeling “bloody sick”. The state of his health isn’t terribly surprising given his recent punishing travel schedule. New York last week preceded by Peru, where G20 finance ministers… – Continue reading
The negotiations conducted by the Ministry of Finance and the Internal Revenue Service (SII) for Chile to sign the agreements to avoid international double taxation with Italy and Japan have concluded successfully. “The successful completion of negotiations with two of the world’s major economies crown an exceptional year in strengthening… – Continue reading
Companies who have been accused of shifting profits to low-tax jurisdictions or those seeking tax shelters need to beware—these practices are coming under fire, and could possibly come to an end. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) just released details of their far-reaching plan that would require companies… – Continue reading
A recent Thomson Reuters survey report reveals that European companies are outpacing all others in developing their Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) action plans by Dec. 31, 2017 – the deadline set by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). But most respondents voiced several concerns about BEPS… – Continue reading
On Oct. 5, 2015, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a set of final reports on its 15 point action plan to address Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS). In an accompanying explanatory statement, the OECD also included plans for additional work on technical matters and a… – Continue reading
NUMBER OF THE WEEK: 0 The number of House Republicans who want to be speaker and can actually secure the necessary 218 votes as of today. After Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s dramatic exit from the race last week, the House GOP conference is taking the week-long Columbus Day recess to… – Continue reading
An agent who brokered offshore contracts between Sevan Marine and Petrobras in Brazil has come under scrutiny after receiving up to $40m of Sevan’s money into its offshore bank account, Norwegian reports say. The agent’s company is now part of the investigation into whether ex-Sevan Marine employees made bribes to… – Continue reading
The Brazilian Federal Revenue – RFB and the General Attorney of the National Treasury – PGFN changed the understanding that they shared in regard to the applying of Withholding Income Tax (IRRF) over foreign remittances of remuneration of technical services supplied by non-residents in Brazil. Before that, the RFB1 and… – Continue reading
Executive summary A new bilateral Tax Arrangement between the Netherlands and Curaçao (TANC), which essentially functions as a tax treaty,1 was ratified by the Dutch Parliament and formally published on 9 October 2015. The TANC will apply to income received on or after 1 January 2016. This long-awaited TANC will… – Continue reading
Legislative Activity House Lawmakers Schedule Markup of Transportation Bill Without Revenue Provisions Last week, on Friday, October 16, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee released a six-year, $325 billion highway funding bill (the Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2015); a markup of the legislation is scheduled for Thursday,… – Continue reading
The September 29 2014 tax reforms (Law 20,780) introduced new provisions to the Tax Code (Decree-Law 830 1974, as amended), which empower the Tax Department to challenge transactions that have been carried out with the aim of avoiding taxes. These provisions introduce a general anti-avoidance rule for the first time…. – Continue reading
Orica has again found itself at odds with the Australian Taxation Office, this time over the circular financing arrangements the explosive maker put in place in 2002 to improve profits for the then struggling group. Orica has disputed the amended tax assessment from the ATO in relation to its “round-robin”… – Continue reading
Finance professionals will play a key role in dealing with changes brought about by a global project to combat corporate tax avoidance. A GLOBAL effort to tackle the problem of companies that attempt to reduce their tax burden by exploiting loopholes in tax rules will impact the way global businesses… – Continue reading
Tax experts from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil and Israel spoke at a two-day conference at Michigan Law about the challenges of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and a multitude of other issues at the intersection of the law of taxation and citizenship. Panel discussions at… – Continue reading
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is behind the new measures to automatically exchange tax information between nations and manage the differences on how tax issues are dealt with. Top ten countries The contractor management specialist CXC Global has identified the ten countries with the most aggressive approach… – Continue reading
On December 29, 2014, Uruguayan Congress ratified the Tax Information Exchange Agreement entered into between Uruguay and Brazil (“the TIEA”). The TIEA is patterned after the OECD Model. The Contracting Parties undertake to cooperate with each other through the exchange of any information which might be foreseeably relevant for tax… – Continue reading
The OECD has finally released its long-expected set of reports regarding its Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project. Reducing the number of action points from 15 to 13, the OECD presented recommendations and common responses to align international tax rules and tackle base erosion and profit shifting. All recommendations… – Continue reading
Banking jobs in Geneva slipped to the lowest level since the 2008 financial crisis amid regulatory pressures, tax scrutiny and consolidation in the Swiss finance industry, according to lobby group Geneva Financial Center. Employees at banks in the city fell 3 percent to 18,855 in the 12 months through August,… – Continue reading
The tax world followed with great interest today´s launch of the final package of BEPS. Having the BEPS report finalized is indeed a great achievement and, as pointed out by Mr. Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary General, in his Twitter, “Agreement of #BEPS package is a historic day in our effort… – Continue reading
