At the request of the G20, OECD published its Action Plan on addressing ‘base erosion and profit shifting’ (BEPS) in July 2013, wherein it identified 15 actions on BEPS for future work, intending to carry out fundamental changes to the international tax standards. Amongst other, Action 7 deals with ‘preventing… – Continue reading
Tax treaties serve to reduce or eliminate double taxation which, if unrelieved, would be a significant barrier to cross-border trade and investment. At the same time, there was need felt to protect against granting of treaty benefits in inappropriate circumstances. In this background, the work of the OECD and G20… – Continue reading
30 September 2015 -New, detailed examination of the SwissLeaks files by Christian Aid working with the US-based Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC) graphically reveals the harm tax haven secrecy does to the economies of developing countries. The SwissLeaks scandal involves thousands of secret accounts at HSBC’s Swiss subsidiary HSBC Private Bank… – Continue reading
With a slim new book that has the feel of Piketty’s bestselling Capital in the 21st Century, Zucman, a 28-year-old University of California-Berkeley economist, is taking his own swing at global capitalism. His target: tax havens that he says hide $7.6-trillion — about 8% of the world’s net financial wealth…. – Continue reading
Gabriel Zucman, one of 3 French economists who in recent times have published extensive research on wealth and equality, in a book, ‘The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens,’ published this month, estimates that 8% of the world’s financial wealth — some US$7.6tn — is hidden in… – Continue reading
The OECD has said that its base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) project will create policy challenges for Ireland, but the nation should emerge well placed to attract foreign direct investment, reports Tax News. The report states: “Given the strong presence of intellectual property-intensive information technology and pharmaceutical companies in… – Continue reading
The Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Action Plan adopted by the OECD and G20 countries in 2013 recognised that enhancing transparency for tax administrations by providing them with adequate information to assess high-level transfer pricing and other BEPS-related risks is a crucial aspect for tackling the BEPS problem. Against… – Continue reading
India must align domestic laws with international treaties A recent ruling of the Punjab & Haryana High Court (HC) in the Serco BPO case has once again underlined the need for consistency between tax policies and the jurisprudence that evolves around it, thus, leaving little to interpretational hazards. The HC,… – Continue reading
In 2013, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a series of proposed tax measures for eliminating corporate tax structures that shift profits to foreign jurisdictions. This corporate tax practice is commonly referred to as base erosion and profit shifting or BEPS. Towards this, the OECD and G20… – Continue reading
Automatic exchange of information for tax law enforcement purposes started first in Europe with the EU Savings Tax Directive, went international with the US Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act, and, from 2017, will go global with the recently-agreed Common Reporting Standard, the subject of this feature. Introduction To The Common… – Continue reading
Tax avoidance is a key problem for European countries, with the EU taking several steps to try and limit the ability of businesses to shift their profits to low-tax jurisdictions. Peter Dietsch writes on the nature of the problem and what can be done to tackle it. He argues that… – Continue reading
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to attend the UN Sustainable Development Summit as part of his second visit to the United States. INDIA IS likely to talk on the increased global efforts against tax avoidance and tax evasion at the United Nations later this month. Prime Minister Narendra Modi… – Continue reading
The tax office is beefing up efforts to catch international tax cheats by swapping banking information with US authorities. Details of more than 30,000 financial accounts worth over $5 billion held in Australia by US citizens will be provided to US Internal Revenue Services under the first wave of transparency… – Continue reading
BHP Billiton has defended the use of a Singapore marketing hub to minimise its tax payments, saying most of its Australian profits continue to be taxed in its home country. The resources giant, which came under fire earlier this year over allegations of tax avoidance, says its global adjusted effective… – Continue reading
BHP Billiton has warned any move by Australia to single-handedly combat corporate profit shifting could spark a backlash from other nations that is likely to ultimately harm local companies. Finance director Peter Beaven says while action on so-called base erosion and profit shifting is needed, it must be part of… – Continue reading
GCC countries are expected to “closely consider” a project that aims to curb perceived tax avoidance by some multi-national companies, according to an international tax expert. Under intense public pressure and unprecedented media focus, leaders of the G20 countries tasked the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to come… – Continue reading
More than 90 jurisdictions, including all 34 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) and the G20 members, have committed to implement the Common Reporting Standard for automatic exchange of tax information (“CRS”). Building on the model created by FATCA, the CRS creates a global standard… – Continue reading
Exclusive: company faces renewed questions over its fitness as security contractor at Australian detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru Wilson Security faces renewed questions about its fitness as security contractor in Australia’s offshore detention centres in light of its corporate links to a tax haven, a corruption scandal that… – Continue reading
Changing Attitudes to Tax Reputation Risk In recent years, it seems that any discussion of tax includes mention of the moral obligation taxpayers have to “pay their fair share.” Many believe this theme began to get traction in 2011 when Warren Buffett realized that he was paying proportionately less taxes… – Continue reading
“Luxembourg is famous for two things: its steel industry and its rose cultivation industry”. This quote from an Italian guidebook of the 1930s was uttered by Luxembourg’s Finance Minister Pierre Gramegna at the annual conference of the Luxembourg Directors’ Association on 17 June 2015[1]. The economic outlook of the tiny… – Continue reading
Note: This article was published by Bloomberg BNA in Tax Planning International European Tax Service Vol. 17 No. 7 July 2015 Introduction The recent LuxLeaks scandal has once again focused political attention on tax planning practices of multinationals (“MNEs”). It comes in the wake of the European Commission investigation of… – Continue reading
There are often a few major issues on everyone’s lips in the international community of tax lawyers. This was the case also at The International Fiscal Association’s (IFA) 69th Congress in Basel, Switzerland. One of the main subjects in the congress was how tax payers’ rights can be most efficiently… – Continue reading
BARBADOS’ OFFSHORE FINANCIAL SERVICES SECTOR is again under threat. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), G20 and the European Union (EU) are acting in concert, armed with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and the Common Reporting Standard (CRS). Once implemented, the confidentiality which once protected financial… – Continue reading
The OECD has told the Group of Twenty nations (G-20) that it will deliver its final recommendations to tackle base erosion and profit shifting on schedule, in October. At the G-20’s meeting on September 21-22, 2015, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said: “I hope to present in Lima [on October 8]… – Continue reading
EFFORTS by rich countries to find international solutions to prevent the erosion of a country’s tax base are being met with suspicion and cynicism from poor countries, tax experts warned at the annual Tax Indaba in Sandton on Tuesday. The base erosion and profit shifting (Beps) project was set in… – Continue reading
The international financial sector faces a perilous future. Major challenges loom over an uncertain global economy, while a decidedly negative political climate poses an existential threat to the offshore financial community. With each passing year, thanks to demographic changes and poorly designed fiscal policies, politicians from high-tax nations will be… – Continue reading
Multinational companies are facing far more expansive and complex audits by tax authorities fighting over the same pot of profits as budget deficits continue to increase, reports BD Live. An inevitable outcome of efforts globally to prevent tax bases from erosion is double taxation and increased disputes over adjusted assessments… – Continue reading
In September 2014, the Hurun Research Institute published its annual listing of the richest people in China. It showed that IT tycoon Ma Yun had increased his personal fortune during the last year by 500% to $25 billion and in doing so, had climbed to first position on the list…. – Continue reading
The government is looking to adopt a global standard on exchange of financial information in 2017 in the hope of addressing the country’s tax revenue issues, according to a Cabinet minister. Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said the move would enable the government to collect financial data on accounts belonging to… – Continue reading
The amount big companies set aside to cover disputed tax bills has more than halved over the past three years to £1.7bn this year, reports the Financial Times. Even though businesses fear more disputes as tax authorities become increasingly tough, they are showing reluctance to be drawn into conflicts that… – Continue reading
G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors released their third communique of 2015 over the weekend. Their rhetoric is notable for the calm statement of positive reassurance on the macroeconomic environment, although the direct policy commitments appear to be light on. In the communique, Ministers and Governors recognised the significant… – Continue reading
The recent shocks in the global economy triggered by the Chinese devaluation of yuan and its economic slowdown are likely to dominate discussions in the two-day meeting of G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors starting here tomorrow over which India has expressed serious concern. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley arrived… – Continue reading
The Cayman Islands are somewhat a tourism paradise. There are crystal blue waters and golden beaches, but the fate of the economy is often overlooked. For years the country has been sustaining itself on the financial services industry, but with the impending issue of tax avoidance in global media, could… – Continue reading
Proposals for consistent global rules on company tax cause worries all round CLARITY or chaos? Supporters of the Base Erosion and Profit-Shifting (BEPS) project, being worked on by the OECD, argue that it will bind multinationals to a consistent set of global tax rules, providing them with less licence than… – Continue reading
This month’s feature examines proposals for new tax information reporting requirements for large multinational businesses as part of wider and ongoing changes to the international tax system – proposals which have been described by international tax experts as the most significant development in the field of transfer pricing since TP… – Continue reading
THE African continent has been under the surveillance for Illicit Financial Flows (IFF) for quite some time now. The report prepared by the former South African President, Mr Thabo Mbeki, who chaired the AU High Level Panel on IFF in early February 2015, clearly states that the multinational companies (MNCs)… – Continue reading
Next week, G20 finance ministers and central bank governors will gather for their third meeting during Turkey’s presidency. With just two and half months until leaders assemble in Antalya for this year’s summit, these meetings give the G20 an opportunity to confirm 2015 outcomes and demonstrate that the G20 remains… – Continue reading
Multinational enterprises (MNEs) producing or selling their products in China have had to contend with the commercial, legal, and tax challenges of managing how their intellectual property (IP) is used in relation to their Chinese operations. Regulatory approvals for joint ventures operating in China have often required that IP rights… – Continue reading
What has happened? On 2 October 2014 the Senate referred an inquiry into corporate tax avoidance to the Senate Economics References Committee for inquiry and report. The Committee conducted public hearings1 in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra and received submissions from a number of senior executives from high profile multinational corporations… – Continue reading
India opposed the proposal saying it impinges on the sovereign rights of developing countries in taxation New Delhi: An international proposal to make arbitration mandatory and binding under mutual agreement procedures (MAP) in tax treaties has been dropped after India strongly opposed it. Last year, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation… – Continue reading
On 17 June 2015, the European Commission launched a public consultation on further corporate tax transparency, which suggests a variety of tax transparency measures including country-by-country reporting (see here). The consultation is intended to gather feedback on which companies should offer more tax transparency and to whom. The deadline for… – Continue reading
At first glance the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project is difficult to understand. There has been no decline in corporate tax revenues in recent years, and nations already possess a variety of tools to respond to erosion when needed. BEPS is thus drawing an inordinate amount of… – Continue reading
FOR MANY YEARS countries around the world have been engaging in the automatic exchange of information in order to tackle offshore tax evasion and other forms of non-compliance. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has been active in facilitating automatic exchange of information by creating the legal framework,… – Continue reading
THE START OF THE implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliant Act on July 1, 2014, combined with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) adoption of the common reporting standard, the support by the European Union of the automatic exchange of information (AEI), and the strong support by… – Continue reading
In its Resolution of March 25, 2015, on the Annual Tax Report (2014/2114(INI)), the European Parliament renewed its commitment to combating tax havens and tax avoidance. To be sure, most aspects of the resolution have been discussed before. Bundling these aspects into one comprehensive package, however, provides an intriguing snapshot… – Continue reading
In short… The current balance of competences between the EU and the UK on tax is quite intricate, with a tension between member states’ desire to determine their own tax systems and the EU-led aim of a level playing field. The EU most obviously influences member states’ indirect taxation (particularly… – Continue reading
A clarifying statement agreed by the UK Treasury and the Ministry of Justice about Guernsey’s position within the OECD bolsters the island’s attractiveness as a fund domicile, according to Guernsey Finance, the promotional agency for the island’s financial services industry. Representatives of Guernsey’s Government, the regulator, and industry bodies have… – Continue reading
The Government of the British Virgin Islands is pleased to announce that The British Virgin Islands (BVI) has been rated “Largely Compliant” for its approach to tax transparency and exchange of information, in the Supplementary Peer Review report published by The Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for… – Continue reading
India follows common approach for implementation of FATCA and CRS New Delhi, Aug 8: The Finance Ministry has come up with the rules for information reporting under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), spelling out the timelines and the entities have to comply with the new requirements. The new… – Continue reading
The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) is likely to recommend that restrictions on interest deductibility should mainly involve a cap calculated as a percentage of EBITDA, an expert has said.07 Aug 2015 Corporate tax Tax International tax Energy Infrastructure However Heather Self of Pinsent Masons, the law firm… – Continue reading
