The formal IRS/Department of Justice (DOJ) Swiss Bank Program has concluded with 80 Swiss banks coming forward. The banks agreed to provide information about personnel, depositors and advisors who were participated in or assisted U.S. taxpayers in offshore tax evasion. In addition to disclosure and cooperation with investigations each of… – Continue reading
Upcoming changes to the Exchange of Information framework hints at future adoption of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Common Reporting Standards. The crux of Singapore’s Income Tax (Amendment) Bill 2016, which some think may signal a new chapter in this sphere, may be summarised as follows: The minister… – Continue reading
Those who have been hiding their income or wealth overseas had better think again, as Korea will soon be exchanging financial information with multiple countries, including tax havens. They are advised to voluntarily report it to the government before the end of March to be given a grace period, said… – Continue reading
The revived Asia Tax Awards will feature categories for companies, firms and individuals. The Asia Tax Awards are back! More than five years after they last took place in November 2010, the Asia Tax Awards will be held once again on Thursday May 5 2016, following the Asia Tax Forum,… – Continue reading
There is no doubt that Cayman Islands remain the favorite domicile for alternative investment funds globally. Cayman is a full service jurisdiction complying with all international standards, but it’s also business-friendly, with a lot of demand to have all relevant industry services located there: 184 banks, 149 trust companies, 108… – Continue reading
In its 2015 Budget, the Canadian federal government announced its intention to exempt “certified” non-resident employers from the obligation to withhold and remit income tax in respect of certain employees that perform duties in Canada. The Canada Revenue Agency (the “CRA“) recently released the application form that a non-resident employer… – Continue reading
SEJONG, Jan. 27 (Yonhap) — South Korea’s tax authorities said Wednesday that it has launched probes into 30 offshore tax evasion cases as part of its efforts to clamp down on tax dodging. The National Tax Service (NTS) said the investigation is targeting companies and individuals who have allegedly concealed… – Continue reading
Moving money out of the usual offshore secrecy havens and into the U.S. is a brisk new business. Last September, at a law firm overlooking San Francisco Bay, Andrew Penney, a managing director at Rothschild & Co., gave a talk on how the world’s wealthy elite can avoid paying taxes…. – Continue reading
The Australian Taxation Office has stepped up investigations into Australians with Swiss bank accounts, pursuing some individual debts worth more than $100 million. Figures obtained by The Australian also show that in the past 12 months the ATO has handed the details of more than 30,000 ¬financial accounts to the… – Continue reading
FATCA. Since July 2014, the five-letter acronym has instilled dread in the hearts of American expats all around the world. “The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) requires banks to report information to the IRS regarding all financial accounts held by American clients,” Ines Zemelman, expat tax specialist and founder… – Continue reading
With the web of FATCA information exchanges, whistleblowers, cooperating witnesses, and other sources, the IRS and Justice Department have a wealth of information at their disposal. They have warned offshore account holders to disclose before it’s too late. Under FATCA, banks everywhere want to know if you are compliant with… – Continue reading
The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has added more banks to the swelling list of financial institutions involved in tax avoidance. Customers of these banks owning up to past financial indiscretions under the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP) face penalties based on balances over the past eight years. Penalties for… – Continue reading
Basseterre, St. Kitts, January 21, 2016 (SKNIS): The Honourable Mark Brantley, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Aviation, said that the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is demonstrative of the Federal Government’s seriousness in playing its role in an ever-changing global environment. He made these comments during an appearance on… – Continue reading
Best positioned firms will upgrade technology infrastructure Financial institutions across Asia-Pacific are behind the curve when it comes to being prepared for evolving global tax reporting regulations. That’s according to a recent survey by Wolters Kluwer Financial Services and the GRC Institute, which indicates that more than 90% of financial… – Continue reading
Jan. 19 — Foreign financial institutions will have more time to certify whether their pre-existing accounts are owned by U.S. taxpayers under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, the IRS said in Notice 2016-8. The Jan. 19 notice answers many significant questions raised by taxpayers on compliance with the law…. – Continue reading
The American dream can turn into a nightmare for expats wanting to switch their UK pensions to a Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme (QROPS). Thousands of expats cross the Atlantic both ways with London home to Americans in sectors such as finance, entertainment and media, while Florida is a popular… – Continue reading
According to the World Bank’s ‘Doing Business 2016 Report’, Hong Kong continues to be one of the world’s easiest places to do business, and tops the ranks in Asia Pacific for starting one. To sustain its economic growth and competitiveness, the Hong Kong government underwent three key changes in 2015:… – Continue reading
On 1st January 2016, an amendment to the Mutual Legal Assistance (Tax Matters) Act, 2003 came into force which implements the Organisation for Economic Co-Operating and Development (OECD) Common Reporting Standard for the exchange of tax information (CRS) in the British Virgin Islands (BVI). Globally this means that participating jurisdictions… – Continue reading
The government of the British Virgin Islands (“BVI“) has amended the Mutual Legal Assistance (Tax Matters) Act, 2003 in order to enact domestic legislation implementing the OECD Common Reporting Standard (“CRS“) which was published on 31 December 2015 (the “BVI CRS Legislation“). It is not currently intended to issue guidance… – Continue reading
Dominican Republic, in January 2016. The Dominican Republic could soon be part of an initiative of the OECD would force financial institutions of the country to exchange information on the accounts of their customers in other countries that are part of this project. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development… – Continue reading
Last year Jersey cemented its position as a leading centre for companies looking to list – as reflected in the rise in volume and value of Jersey companies listed on exchanges around the world. Here are some challenges that lie ahead in this jurisdiction over the next 12 months. In… – Continue reading
FATCA letters are going out from banks around the world to millions of US expats in readiness for reporting their financial information to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). If you are one of the 8 million US expats subject to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), what do you… – Continue reading
Americans living abroad feel that the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act negatively impacts their professional lives and that compliance with the related tax reporting requirements is overly burdensome, a survey by Americans Abroad Global Foundation and the University of Nevada has found. But most survey respondents believe the U.S. government… – Continue reading
KUWAIT: Kuwaiti citizens who possess US passports need to straighten out their US tax status to avoid the penalty of having their US passports scrapped, said Abdulaziz Al-Anjeri, head of the American Tax Bureau in Kuwait. Technically Kuwaitis are barred from holding a second citizenship but many are suspected of… – Continue reading
The IRS has announced important changes to its offshore account programs. They come as FATCA is taking hold worldwide. Many foreign banks are rooting out Americans with increasing vigilance. One key target of the changes? Americans living abroad and certain others who can now come within the IRS Streamlined Program…. – Continue reading
Filippo Noseda has examined the impact of the OCED’s Common Reporting Standard (CRS) on trusts at a time when they are under threat in a number of continental European jurisdictions in an article which was first published in Trust Quarterly Review, Volume 13, Issue 3 2015. Filippo concludes that these… – Continue reading
The BVI has passed legislation to implement the Organisation for Economic Co-Operating and Development (OECD) Common Reporting Standard for the exchange of tax information (CRS). The amendments to the Mutual Legal Assistance (Tax Matters) Act, 2003, which implement CRS in the BVI, will come into force on 1 January 2016…. – Continue reading
The BVI and Cayman are often referred to as “tax neutral” and you might have been told that, for this reason, it would be advantageous to establish your fund in either jurisdiction. What does this actually mean and what does it mean for your fund? Primarily, it means that BVI… – Continue reading
According to a recent petition, the Israeli government has taken the wrong side in a world war that the US is waging over taxes of its overseas dual citizens. The financal future of 9 million Americans worldwide and hundreds of thousands living in Israel could be at stake. According to… – Continue reading
Christmas Island has timely picked the festive holiday to join the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) list of Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) jurisdictions. The small Indian Ocean outpost has a single financial institution reporting to the IRS. Interestingly, the FATCA list of financial centres now exceeds the United Nations… – Continue reading
The year 2015 will be marked as the year of slow economic growth and haphazard fiscal and monetary policies due in part to the uncertainties brought about by the change in government. There were also leadership changes at the FIRS and a number of state tax authorities. This article outlines… – Continue reading
The Government of the Bahamas has recalled that 2015 brought significant challenges for the territory in the area of tax, with the implementation of a VAT regime, adoption of FATCA legislation, and the expansion of duty free concessions to cover the whole of Grand Bahama. The Bahamas Government recently released… – Continue reading
Luanda – Throughout the year just ended, as in the previous, the country’s economy “found himself grappling” with a major setback if they can be considered, due to the continued drop in oil prices, which is in the house $ 37 a barrel, far from the historic $ 122 value,… – Continue reading
New Delhi: Mutual Fund houses will have to mandatorily provide compliance details for the new global tax avoidance law FATCA with regard to each client on the stock exchange’s mutual fund trading platform. In a circular, BSE said for each and every transaction mutual fund houses have been asked “to… – Continue reading
Several Slovak banks are already preparing for the new obligations arising from the agreement FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act). Because it had to make changes in particular in its information systems. “Following the agreement FATCA UniCredit Group has developed separate software for the purpose of fulfilling the obligations under… – Continue reading
On 1 January 2016, the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) became effective. The CRS is a new, single global standard on automatic exchange of information. It replaces the EU Taxation on Savings Directive and is essentially a global form of FATCA-like reporting. Under the CRS, Irish funds are now required to… – Continue reading
Mutual Fund houses will have to mandatorily provide compliance details for the new global tax avoidance law FATCA with regard to each client on the stock exchange’s mutual fund trading platform. In a circular, BSE said for each and every transaction mutual fund houses have been asked “to upload FATCA… – Continue reading
(Special) – Winter brings with it the dream of many Canadian snowbirds of owning a piece of property in the sunny south. With the recent rebound in the U.S. housing market and a decline in the value of the Canadian dollar, however, buying vacation property south of the border may… – Continue reading
Lately, the IRS is warning offshore account holders to disclose before it’s too late. Under FATCA, banks everywhere want to know if you are compliant with the IRS. And the cost of compliance for many people is growing. The IRS updated its list of foreign banks where accounts trigger a… – Continue reading
Shortly before New Year’s, on Wednesday, December 30, 2015, the media reported that Julius Baer Group AG (“JB”) expected to pay about $547 million to settle the U.S. investigation into how the bank (and its bankers) assisted U.S. taxpayers in evading tax. This investigation began more than 4 years ago,… – Continue reading
Although the British Virgin Islands is often seen as an offshore tax haven, a closer look shows such opinions may be overstated There is a stereotypical image of the so-called ‘tax haven’ for ‘shady people to put their money’. While it is true that BVI Finance enjoys warm, sunny weather… – Continue reading
SAS and DataGear implement tailor-made FATCA solution within Al Baraka Bank Dubai, UAE – Al Baraka Bank Egypt , a subsidiary banking unit of Al Baraka Banking Group B.S.C. (ABG) , partnered with SAS®, the leader in analytics, and Data Gear, a Business Intelligence (BI) software & services provider, to… – Continue reading
New actions for advisors to consider in light of these developments In the last quarter of 2015, Russia saw a flurry of changes concerning the tax amnesty program, de-offshoring and the reporting of foreign accounts. We highlight the most significant developments below. What the New Rules Say Tax amnesty. On… – Continue reading
The FATCA reporting deadline for financial institutions in Portugal has been extended again, this time to 31 March 2016. An order of the Portuguese Secretary of State for the Financial Affairs, issued 28 December 2015, extends the deadline for Portuguese financial institutions to report relevant information under the FATCA regime… – Continue reading
Investors in mutual fund (MF) schemes have to provide additional KYC (know your customer) information in the new year. The additional details have been mandated to ensure that India complies with tax information-sharing laws such as FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act). The Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI)… – Continue reading
THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (DC) recently enacted, as part of its budget, provisions that force entities doing business in any of 39 arbitrarily designated “tax havens” to report their income on worldwide combined reporting. Eighteen are Caribbean jurisdictions. A tax haven is defined by the DC code… – Continue reading
An Inter-Governmental Agreement between India and USA was signed for implementation of Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). The Government of India has also joined the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement (MCAA) for Automatic Exchange of Information as per Common Reporting Standard (CRS). For implementation of FATCA and CRS, necessary legislative… – Continue reading
ONE | A NEW LIBERAL GOVERNMENT Elected in October 2015, Canada’s new Liberal government has proposed a tax platform featuring significant changes, including a four per cent increase (to 33 per cent) in the federal tax rate for individuals on income over C$200,000 and a 1.5 per cent drop in… – Continue reading
The Minister of Finance has announced a decision on international information exchange based on the FATCA agreement. This decision contains a publication of the concluded in November 2015 between the competent authorities of the Netherlands and the US administrative arrangements for the practical application of the FATCA agreement EN-US 2013… – Continue reading
An Inter-Governmental Agreement between India and USA was signed for implementation of Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). The Government of India has also joined the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement (MCAA) for Automatic Exchange of Information as per Common Reporting Standard (CRS). For implementation of FATCA and CRS, necessary legislative… – Continue reading
