Companies operating in Belgium sent more than €221 billion to countries local authorities regard as tax havens, according to Belgian daily Le Soir. Belgium’s gross domestic product was €466 billion last year. According to the country’s tax authorities, 853 Belgian companies funneled almost a half of the country’s economic output… – Continue reading
In an effort to create a ‘level playing field’, Asian economies are committing to new standards of transparency At the risk of losing some foreign investors, Asian jurisdictions are stepping up efforts to combat corporate tax avoidance to meet new global transparency standards. More than a dozen Asia-Pacific jurisdictions have… – Continue reading
The UK will not engage in aggressive tax competition to attract business post-Brexit, Chancellor Philip Hammond has said. He added that the country’s economy will remain aligned with the European model after leaving the EU. “It is often said that London would consider launching into unfair competition in terms of… – Continue reading
“Disproportionate” value disappears from economic system compared to GDP Malta ranks first among a number of EU countries in a list of what a new study calls 24 “sink offshore financial centres”, which it says are typically characterised as tax havens. The study, published this week in the academic journal… – Continue reading
Labour is threatening to crack down on multinational companies that are dodging paying their fair share of tax in a move it believes will net $200 million a year in extra tax for the Government. Leader Andrew Little said according to Inland Revenue, New Zealanders were missing out by hundreds… – Continue reading
Andorra has criminalised tax evasion, a parliamentary source said Monday as the tiny mountain principality, once a popular tax haven, moves towards full banking transparency. Last year, the OECD removed Andorra from its “grey” list of tax havens after it agreed to the automatic exchange of information on non-residents’ bank… – Continue reading
Slovakia is the first V4 country to sign the agreement on country-by-country reporting. Slovakia’s Financial Administration has obtained easier access to the information of US multinational companies. The representatives of Slovakia and the US signed a bilateral agreement on country-by-country (CbC) reporting on June 21, the TASR newswire reported. The… – Continue reading
Ecuadoreans voted to approve a historic law banning public officials from having assets or capital in tax havens. Ecuador approved on Friday a historic law prohibiting public officials from hiding wealth in offshore tax havens after voting on it in a public plebiscite, stirring the political alliances of the opposition…. – Continue reading
A Paris court fined a Latvian bank Thursday for laundering hundreds of millions of euros through a vast scheme allowing French taxpayers to avoid paying their dues. The court fined Rietumu Banka 80 million euros ($91 million) for facilitating a scam to “democratize” tax evasion among ordinary taxpayers and small… – Continue reading
The European Union has published a letter to EU heads of state, laying down a direct challenge to the Trump administration, on the issues of tax avoidance ahead of the G20 summit this weekend. The joint letter, sent by European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council president Donald Tusk… – Continue reading
Indonesia and Switzerland have signed a joint declaration on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (AEOI) yesterday. The signing was held at the Directorate General of Tax in Central Jakarta. At the signing ceremony, Indonesia was represented by Director General of Tax for the Finance Ministry Ken Dwijugeasteadi and Switzerland… – Continue reading
The OECD’s body for assessing compliance with international tax transparency standards plans to tell an upcoming summit in Hamburg, Germany, that Trinidad and Tobago is the world’s only tax haven. Group of 20 country leaders meeting last year in China asked that body, the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange… – Continue reading
KARACHI: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Friday issued a list of at least 88 countries, including tax haven Switzerland to automatically swap financial information of their citizens — but does not mention United Arab Emirates and Panama, the tax avoidance hubs for wealthy Pakistanis. The country will exchange financial… – Continue reading
A new report shows the offshore jurisdiction is home to assets of $1.5tn, double an estimate by the International Monetary Fund in 2010. Assets held offshore in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) are worth $1.5 trillion (£1.19 trillion), double the International Monetary Fund’s 2010 estimate. That’s according to a new… – Continue reading
President Donald Trump and Republican leaders in Congress will soon confront a complex challenge for tax reform: how to limit U.S. corporate tax avoidance schemes that take advantage of low tax rates in foreign countries. Congressional and administration staff have begun to examine options to address profit-shifting schemes that include… – Continue reading
Madrid (AFP) – Cristiano Ronaldo under suspicion, Radamel Falcao investigated, Lionel Messi sentenced… Spain’s courts have been busy tackling the alleged and real multi-million-euro tax evasion of football’s greatest stars. But while they may be aware of what they are doing, footballers rely on expert go-betweens like big banks to… – Continue reading
Japanese individuals and companies listed in the leaked Panama Papers owe more than ¥1 billion ($9.06 million) in taxes on undeclared income, sources close to the matter have said. This is the first calculation by Japanese tax authorities of the amount owed on the undeclared income exposed by the documents,… – Continue reading
A study released May 28 by University of California Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman and two Scandinavian colleagues, “Tax Evasion and Inequality,” demonstrates that global wealth inequality is drastically underestimated in official statistics because of how successful the super-rich are at evading taxes. According to the paper, the super-rich, that is… – Continue reading
A veteran financial services provider yesterday warned that automatic tax information exchange could breach fundamental rights protected by the Bahamian constitution, while threatening to make this nation a “European satellite”. #Anthony Howorth, president of Euro-Caribbean Management Services, questioned whether the Government and financial services industry had “really thought through” the… – Continue reading
Jean-Claude Juncker tells MEPs legislation will try to solve ‘real problem’ of experts helping clients exploit tax laws Brussels is preparing to crack down on accountants and lawyers running tax-avoidance schemes in response to the Panama Papers scandal that showed how the rich and powerful hide their money. Jean-Claude Juncker,… – Continue reading
The Government yesterday moved to prevent the “devastating” consequences of a financial services ‘blacklisting’ by confirming its readiness to alter the Bahamas’ automatic tax information exchange approach. A Ministry of Finance statement, issued yesterday evening, said the Minnis administration had “formally indicated its interest” to the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation… – Continue reading
The Government yesterday moved to prevent the “devastating” consequences of a financial services ‘blacklisting’ by confirming its readiness to alter the Bahamas’ automatic tax information exchange approach. #A Ministry of Finance statement, issued yesterday evening, said the Minnis administration had “formally indicated its interest” to the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation… – Continue reading
The finance minister says federal government doesn’t “want to wait for the next Panama Papers.” Canada’s finance minister denounced “unfair” tax loopholes on Thursday and put Bay St. on notice that the Liberal government is committed to addressing “blind spots” and exposing shadowy corporate finances to public scrutiny. “We don’t… – Continue reading
New centre established to focus efforts on gaining better foothold in tax havens A unanimous Parliament yesterday agreed to significantly step up Denmark’s efforts to combat international tax evasion. Among the new initiatives are the establishment of a new centre that will consolidate efforts against tax evasion, more transparency regarding… – Continue reading
The European Commission will be forced to draw up a new blacklist of countries that facilitate money laundering after the European Parliament overwhelmingly rejected the latest effort that failed to consider countries that enable tax evasion. EU lawmakers voted 392-80, with 207 abstentions, to reject the list that includes 11… – Continue reading
Norbert Walter-Borjans has been busy turning himself into the public scourge of German tax cheats and foreign tax havens. Having already riled Switzerland by buying CDs with stolen bank account data – and then accusing the Alpine state of spying on his tax offices – North Rhine-Westphalia’s finance minister criticized… – Continue reading
“The ball is in the Bahamas’ court” to meet its automatic tax information exchange commitments, a senior industry executive yesterday saying there is “no alarm” about this nation having to alter its approach. #Tanya McCartney, the Bahamas Financial Services Board’s (BFSB) chief executive, told Tribune Business that the private sector… – Continue reading
New measures targeting trust companies and banks in their role of helping to create offshore companies, such as the more than 200,000 exposed in the year-old Panama Papers, should be the priority for EU legislators in their efforts to crack down on the use of tax haven intermediaries, according to… – Continue reading
The Australian Tax Office had a superb win against Chevron in the Federal Court last week, but there is something everyone is missing, something that will turn the art of tax avoidance on its head; a game-changer for multinationals. Put simply, Chevron borrowed US$2.5 billion in the US at less… – Continue reading
ISLAMABAD: Even before the formation of a seven-member joint investigation team (JIT) on the money trail of assets owned by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family, in accordance with the decision of the Supreme Court, new questions have arisen over its supposed modus operandi. The JIT team will not… – Continue reading
BASSETERRE, St Kitts (WINN) — Efforts by one American state to officially label St Kitts and Nevis a foreign tax haven are being strongly objected to by the federation’s foreign affairs minister, Mark Brantley, thus joining Antigua and Barbuda in a similar protest. A proposed House Bill 3419 in the… – Continue reading
Members of the Methodist Tax Justice Network (MTJN) and the Tax Justice Network (TJN) gathered outside the Embankment headquarters of PricewaterhouseCoopers on Wednesday 5 April 2017 to demonstrate in support of whistleblowers and against the actions of PwC, who have facilitated global tax avoidance, tried to prevent the release of… – Continue reading
The European Commission wants stricter guidelines for the “tax privileges’’ some European Union countries permit within special economic zones in their jurisdictions, to enhance economic development. The confidential proposal for the guidelines, seen by Bloomberg BNA, is currently under discussion within the EU’s Code of Conduct Group for Business Taxation,… – Continue reading
With a total of 15 action points, the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project aims at fighting the artificial shift of profits from jurisdictions with high taxes to tax havens, often as a part of an entirely legal strategy used by MNEs. The BEPS Action 13 (Transfer Pricing… – Continue reading
A new report from Transparency International has revealed that more than US$2.7 billion worth of property in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s biggest city, is hidden behind shell companies, many of which have close links to the United Kingdom, which has many offshore tax havens in its overseas dependencies. Using newly released… – Continue reading
A new report from Transparency International has revealed that more than US$2.7 billion worth of property in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s biggest city, is hidden behind shell companies, many of which have close links to the United Kingdom, which has many offshore tax havens in its overseas dependencies. Using newly released… – Continue reading
A bill introduced by a Democratic State Representative in the Prairie State of Illinois has named 18 Caribbean nations as foreign tax havens and if it becomes law, would forbid a company incorporated in any of those nations from submitting a bid or entering into a contract with the state…. – Continue reading
Antigua & Barbuda, on Wednesday, launched what government said was a strong objection with the US State of Illinois, which has introduced legislation, listing the twin island state and 10 Caricom countries as tax havens. In letters to the Speaker of the House of Represen-tatives of the Illinois General Assembly,… – Continue reading
Hyderabad: Shell companies are becoming a common phenomenon globally and even in India. These companies are posing several challenges to governments and regulators for various reasons had been probing their involvement in large scale money laundering and tax avoidance cases. A shell company is a non-trading organisation that does not… – Continue reading
Singapore is home to the majority of the Rp 1,174-trillion assets overseas owned by Indonesians, which had been declared and repatriated to Indonesia under the Tax Amnesty program. Indonesia, GIVnews.com – Indonesia’s tax amnesty program has proven public claim that Singapore is a favorable place for wealthy Indonesians to store… – Continue reading
There is a worrying perception of Barbados on as a tax haven, a view that is hampering the island’s status as a jurisdiction in which to do business, says President of the Barbados International Business Association (BIBA) Gregory McConnie. Equally troubling, McConnie says, is that Barbados’ primary investing jurisdiction, Canada,… – Continue reading
Chile is leading a regional push across Latin America to clamp down on tax avoidance and profit-shifting by multinational and local firms, with the country’s tax authority making companies with interests and assets one of its priorities for inspections this year. Outlining its tax enforcement plan for 2017 on March… – Continue reading
Malta’s threat places it 20th out of 27 states, Pana Committee told Malta faces an annual €8 billion money laundering risk, according to figures quoted in a study presented to the European Parliament’s Pana committee. The committee, which visited Malta in February for a fact-finding mission on the island’s involvement… – Continue reading
The Government has told US lawmakers that Ireland has closed down a loophole on stateless entities and is “doing exactly what you would want every country to do to avoid tax abuse”. Last January, the Oregon Department of Revenue made a recommendation that Ireland be included as a ‘listed jurisdiction’… – Continue reading
U.S. Rep. John Delaney has introduced two infrastructure funding bills — H.R. 1669 and H.R. 1670 — that good government groups say would further incentivize corporate tax dodging, reward the biggest multinational corporations for stashing their profits in offshore tax havens and replace one system riddled with tax loopholes with… – Continue reading
Money will be used to hire more auditors and develop computer systems to “target high-risk international tax” evasion. Tax auditors and fraud investigators have been given more than half a billion dollars to pursue tax cheats, and the government expects them to collect five times that much in additional taxes…. – Continue reading
Governments around the world are losing as much as half a trillion US dollars (£400 billion) a year in tax revenue due to so-called “profit shifting” by multinational companies, according to research. The research published by the Tax Justice Network found that poorer countries were hardest-hit by the practice, which… – Continue reading
The European Parliament’s Panama Papers investigative committee is preparing for a “fact-finding” visit with counterparts in the U.S. Congress, as well as officials from the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service. The European Union lawmakers’ four-day U.S. trip, which begins March 21, will include a visit to Delaware for meetings… – Continue reading
Preventing tax fraud and stopping multinationals from seeking out tax havens are important issues for Poland and will be discussed at a G20 summit later this week, Polish Finance Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has said. “We want medium-sized countries as well as smaller countries, which we represent … not to be… – Continue reading
Dubai,, till now considered a tax haven , has decided to share information of the bank accounts in the UAE with the Indian government starting next year. This has sent jitters among several Indians, who are rushing to hide their undeclared wealth stashed abroad. From January 2018, the UAE will… – Continue reading
