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2017

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Brexit stokes tax fight between Ireland and EU


Ireland has loudly proclaimed its unitywith rest of the EU since Britain voted to leave the bloc, but a clash over the Irish low-tax regime could shatter the cohesion.

In Irish business circles, Brexit has triggered a brainstorm on how best to use it as an opportunity to push back on the EU's crackdown on Irish tax policy.

Their nuclear option: "Irexit."
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German Authorities Discuss Controversial VAT Measures for Foreign Websites


When the finance ministers of Germany's 16 states concluded a conference in May on how to combat VAT fraud related to online sales, they issued a release saying that solutions under review include a requirement for online platforms to remit tax directly.what they didn't announce publiclywas that they are also considering requirements thatwould makewebsite operators post confidential information about their companies online in machine-readable format and provide details about credit card and other payment flows from customers.
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Brazil Simplifies Regulations to Ease World's Worst Tax Reporting Burden


Brazil's Finance Ministry on August 7 announced a series of measures intended to simplify tax reporting requirements for the nation's business sector. Practitioners say the measures could help soften Brazil's reputation for making businesses jump through often redundant hoops to complywith tax reporting obligations.
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France and Germany Plan Tax Crackdown on U.S. Tech Giants


France isworkingwith Germany and other partners to plug loopholes that have allowed U.S. tech giants like Alphabet Inc.'s Google, Apple Inc., Facebook Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. to minimize taxes and grab market share in Europe at the expense of the continent's own companies.

Francewill propose the "simpler rules" for a "real taxation" of tech firms at a meeting of European Union officials due mid-September in Tallinn, Estonia, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said in an interview in his Paris office on Friday, complaining that Europe-wide initiatives are proving too slow.
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Tax-driven wealth chains: A multiple case study of tax avoidance in the Finnish mining sector


This paper contributes to recent discussions of corporate tax avoidance and globalwealth chains. Drawing on multiple case studies,we outline the key strategies adopted by Finnish mining companies as they seek to lower their tax burden. After screening the accounts of the companies mining metallic ores in Finland,we provide an in-depth analysis of the tax avoidance arrangements at three of these mines. The mineswere operated by two Canadian enterprises that utilized seven different tax avoidance arrangements.
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The Platform for Collaboration on Tax Invites Comments on a Draft Toolkit on the Taxation of Offshore Indirect Transfers of Assets

  • By The Platform for Collaboration on Tax

The Platform for Collaboration on Tax – a joint initiative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), OECD, United Nations andworld Bank Group – is seeking public feedback on a draft toolkit designed to help developing countries tackle the complexities of taxing offshore indirect transfers of assets, a practice bywhich some multinational corporations try to minimize their tax liability.
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U.S. Multinationals and Cash Holdings


U.S. multinational firms hold significantly more cash than domestic firms. I study this cash differential using a dynamic model featuring corporate physical and intangible investment, cross-border decisions, and financial policies. I find that the cash differential diminishes by 42% if repatriation costs are set to zero. Hence, costly repatriation induces cash accumulation offshore.
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Uncovering Offshore Financial Centers: Conduits and Sinks in the Global Corporate Ownership Network


Multinational corporations use highly complex structures of parents and subsidiaries to organize their operations and ownership. Offshore Financial Centers (OFCs) facilitate these structures through low taxation and lenient regulation, but are increasingly under scrutiny, for instance for enabling tax avoidance. Therefore, the identification of OFC jurisdictions has become a politicized and contested issue.we introduce a novel data-driven approach for identifying OFCs based on the global corporate ownership network, inwhich over 98 million firms (nodes) are connected through 71 million ownership relations.
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Netherlands, U.K. Are Largest Financial Conduits to Tax Havens, Report Says


The Netherlands and the U.K. are the two largest conduit financial centers, channeling 37 percent of all corporate offshore investment to and from tax havens, according to a new report.
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Lessons From India's Ambitious Tax Reform Adventure


Will tax reform necessarily contribute to economic growth? It's tempting to answerwith a resounding yes, but the better response is more cautious. The outcome depends on the details, suggesting that stakeholderswould dowell to manage their expectations.

The relative success of any tax reform effort is partly a function of one's starting point. The greater your preexisting inefficiencies, the stronger the potential for reform to be transformative. A useful illustration is provided by India's recent experience.
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Post-Brexit Luxembourg May Be More Attractive with Tax Reform, OECD Says


Luxembourg's financial center could become more attractive after Brexit as it implements anti-tax-avoidance legislation, including the outcomes of the base erosion and profit-shifting project, to help level the playing field in corporate taxation, a new OECD report says.
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Brazil's Rejection of VAT on Web Ads a Boost for Google, Facebook


Internet giants Google and Facebook havewon important court victories in Brazil, reversing the taxation of their advertising revenue by Brazilian states.

In separate cases, the tax court of Sao PauloÔøΩBrazil's business center and its key financial stateÔøΩruled that the internet advertising revenue of both Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Facebook Inc. aren't subject to value-added tax (ICMS), the main source of revenue for Brazil's states.
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France and Germany Revive Discussions About Tax Harmonization, FTT


Although the years-long efforts by the governments of France and Germany to persuade other EU member states to adopt a common corporate tax base and a financial transaction tax (FTT) appeared recently to be going nowhere, high-level officials in both countries have started talking up the two proposals again in recentweeks.
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EU Takes Legal Action Against Portugal, Two Others on Tax Deals


The European Commission launched legal proceedings against Portugal, Bulgaria, and Cyprus for not adopting, in their national laws, European Union legislation requiring all EU countries to exchange tax rulings granted to multilateral companies.

The legislationwas adopted in thewake of the 2014 LuxLeaks scandal that revealed more than 100 individualized tax rulings the Luxembourg government secretly signedwith multinational companies such as McDonald's Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. The measure (EEC/2015/2376)was required to be on the books of each EU country by the end of 2016; the first exchange among EU country tax authorities is due to take place in September.
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Malaysia Releases Updated Transfer Pricing Guidelines


Malaysian tax authorities on July 11 released updated transfer pricing guidelines covering, in particular, the arm's-length principle, intangibles, commodity transactions, and documentation. This article highlights the main developments in the chapter on the arm's-length principle.
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OECD Releases Updated Transfer Pricing Guidelines


The OECD has published a 2017 version of its transfer pricing guidelines that incorporates revisions made during the base erosion and profit-shifting project.

The OECD's July 10 release of its Transfer Pricing Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and Tax Administrations (2017) marks the first full update of the guidelines since 2010. The revisions incorporate the substantive changes made by the 2015 final BEPS report on actions 8-10 and the documentation and country-by-country reporting requirements of the action 13 report. The changes provide up-to-date guidance on the application of the arm's-length principle,which "remains the international consensus on the valuation, for income tax purposes, of cross-border transactions between associated enterprises," according to an OECD press release.
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OECD releases the draft contents of the 2017 update to the OECD Model Tax Convention

  • By OECD

The OECD Committee on Fiscal Affairs has just released the draft contents of the 2017 update to the OECD Model Tax Convention prepared by the Committee'sworking Party 1. The update has not yet been approved by the Committee on Fiscal Affairs or by the OECD Council, although, as noted below, significant parts of the 2017 updatewere previously approved as part of the BEPS Package. Itwill be submitted for the approval of the Committee on Fiscal Affairs and of the OECD Council later in 2017. This draft therefore does not necessarily reflect the final views of the OECD and its member countries.
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IDFC Bank: A Bank In A Hurry


IDFC Ltd, among the more successful infrastructure lenders in the country,was one of 26 entities that applied for a banking licence in 2013. Itwas one of only two (Bandhan Financial being the second) that managed to pass the many rounds of scrutiny that each licence-aspirantwas subjected to by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The fact that IDFC got the nod to launch a universal bankwas partly due to its diversified ownership, but itwas as much a testament to the track record established by the organisation since its inception in 1997.
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EU Financial Transactions Tax Talks Kicked to End 2017


A pivotal meeting of 10 European Union finance ministers on a financial transactions tax, due to take place July 10, has been postponed until the end of 2017 at the earliest.

The 10 EU countries officially pursuing the financial transactions tax are Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain.
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Russia Clarifies PE Determinations Under Tax Treaty With U.K.


The Russian Ministry of Finance has released Guidance Letter 03-08-05/36799 (dated June 14),which clarifies the permanent establishment determinations under Russia's tax treatywith the United Kingdom.

Under article 7 of Russia's Tax Code, the corporate tax liabilities of a taxpayer in Russia (whether resident or nonresident) must be determined in light of the provisions of any applicable tax treaty (or treaty protocol). The treaty provisions prevail over any conflicting Russian tax laws and regulations.
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OECD releases latest updates to the Transfer Pricing Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and Tax Administrations


The OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines provide guidance on the application of the "arm's length principle",which represents the international consensus on the valuation, for income tax purposes, of cross-border transactions between associated enterprises. In today's economywhere multinational enterprises play an increasingly prominent role, transfer pricing continues to be high on the agenda of tax administrations and taxpayers alike. Governments need to ensure that the taxable profits of MNEs are not artificially shifted out of their jurisdiction and that the tax base reported by MNEs in their country reflects the economic activity undertaken therein and taxpayers need clear guidance on the proper application of the arm's length principle.
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Indias set to roll out its biggest tax reform in 70 years. Heres what it means


One of India's most ambitious economic reform plans in 70 yearswill ultimately boost tax receipts and provide simplicity for businesses, but the true impact may not be felt for at least a decade due to implementation challenges, experts said.
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Liechtenstein, Monaco Sign Tax Treaty


Officials from Liechtenstein and Monaco signed an income and capital tax treaty in Bern on June 28, the Liechtenstein government has announced.

The treaty reportedly conforms to the OECD standard on information exchange and transparency and takes into account the October 2015 final reports of the OECD's base erosion and profit-shifting project, designed to combat tax avoidance in the cross-border context. Negotiations began in May 2015 and a treatywas initialed last November.
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UN must defend target to curtail multinational companies tax abuse

  • By Tax Justice Network

The Tax Justice Network, ICRICT and the Global Alliance for Tax Justice havewritten to the new UN Secretary General António Guterres urging him to make sure that the commitment to tackle multinational tax abuse is not eliminated from the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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At Your Service! The Role of Tax Havens in International Trade with Services


This paper provides the first comprehensive study of profit shifting through mispriced service trade inside multinational firms. The analysis employs a unique firm-level datasetwith detailed information about service trade and foreign affiliates for virtually all multinational firms in Germany.
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Corporate Taxation and Location of Intangible Assets: Patents vs. Trademarks


Numerous empirical studies have analysed the influence of corporate taxation on the location of intangible assetswithin a company group. However, the previous literature has rather focused on studying the impact of taxation on patent location choices assuming that these assets represent the rest of intangibles aswell. This paper complements previous studies by estimating and comparing the tax elasticities of two different types of intangibles – patents and trademarks.we employ data on European and US patent and trademark applications in the period of 1996-2012 and estimate a multinomial logit model that incorporates various observed and unobserved factors of the intangible's location choice. According to our main findings, trademarks are more sensitive to changes in taxation as compared to patents. This implies that firms use trademarks more eagerly for tax planning purposes than patents.
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Effectiveness of Fiscal Incentives for R&D: Quasi-Experimental Evidence


With growing academic and policy interest in research and development (R&D) tax incentives, the question about their effectiveness has become ever more relevant. In the absence of an exogenous policy reform, the simultaneous determination of companies' tax positions and their R&D spending causes an identification problem in evaluating tax incentives. To overcome this identification challenge,we exploit a U.K. policy reform and use the population of corporation tax records that provide precise information on the amount of firm-level R&D expenditure. Using difference-in-differences and other panel regression approaches,we find a positive and significant impact of tax incentives on R&D spending, and an implied user cost elasticity estimate of around -1.6. This translates to more than a pound in additional private R&D for each pound foregone in corporation tax revenue.
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Bonus Taxes and International Competition for Bank Managers


We analyze the competition in bonus taxationwhen banks compensate their managers by means of fixed and incentive pay and bankers are internationally mobile. Banks choose bonus payments that induce excessive managerial risk-taking to maximize their private benefits of existing government bailout guarantees. In this setting the international competition in bonus taxes may feature a 'race to the bottom' or a 'race to the top', depending onwhether bankers are a source of net positive tax revenue or inflict net fiscal losses on taxpayers as a result of incentive pay. A 'race to the top' becomes more likelywhen governments' impose only lax capital requirements on banks,whereas a 'race to the bottom' is more likelywhen bank losses are partly collectivized in a banking union.
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Accounting for Business Income in Measuring Top Income Shares: Integrated Accrual Approach Using Individual and Firm Data from Norway


Business income is important in the upper tail of the personal income distribution, but the extent towhich it is captured by measures of personal income varies substantially across tax regimes. Using linked individual and firm data from Norway,we are able to attribute business income to personal owners as it accrues rather thanwhen it is realized. This adjustment leads to an increase in top income shares, and the size of this effect varies dramatically depending on the tax regime in place.
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IRS Attention


We study how public and private disclosure requirements interact to influence both tax regulator enforcement and firm disclosure. To capture IRS enforcement activities,we introduce a novel data set of IRS acquisition of firms' public financial disclosures,whichwe label IRS attention.we examine the implementation of two new disclosure requirements that potentially alter IRS attention: FIN 48,which increased public tax disclosure requirements, and Schedule UTP,which increased private tax disclosure.we find that IRS attention increased following FIN 48 but subsequently decreased following Schedule UTP, consistentwith public and private disclosure interacting to influence tax enforcement.
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Bank of China Settles Italy Tax Dispute Over Cash Transfers


The Bank of China paid 20 million euros ($22.4 million) to resolve a tax disputewith Italy over thousands of money transfers the bank orchestrated between Chinese nationals in Italy and their home country, the Italian government said June 21.
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OECD to Release Updated Transfer Pricing Guidelines, Branch Mismatches Report


The OECD is set to release an updated version of its transfer pricing guidelines, aswell as a report on branch mismatches, in July, according to top OECD officials.

Speaking during the OECD's sixth installment of the Tax Talkswebcast series June 26, Pascal Saint-Amans, director of the OECD's Centre for Tax Policy and Administration (CTPA), confirmed that the new version of the transfer pricing guidelines,whichwere last updated in 2010 and amended in 2016 based on the final base erosion and profit-shifting reports on actions 8-10 (transfer pricing) and action 13 (transfer pricing documentation),will be published soon.
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Lets talk about the tax reform in the Philippines


There are a lot of those previously exempt from value-added tax (VAT) or zero-rated VAT transactions that are being disallowed under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion. However, these transactions are usually not applicable anyway to business enterprises. Though these proposed changes in the VAT law are quite significant, let me just skip these and go to one change closer to the heart of start-up businesses.
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The British Virgin Islands is trying to prove it's not a tax haven campaigners aren't buying it


Transparency and tax campaigners are clashingwith officials from the British Virgin Islands (BVI) over a new report claiming the Caribbean islands are not a tax haven.

The report,written by Capital Economics and commissioned by BVI Finance,which promotes the country's financial sector, said the islands are strong contributors to the global economy and help facilitate international trade and investment.
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Austrian Parliamentary Committee Approves for Ratification MLI, Tax Treaty With Israel


The Austrian parliament's Finance Committee on June 21 approved for ratification the OECD Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (MLI) and the pending tax treatywith Israel, according to information published on the Parliament'swebsite.
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Bribes, Borders and Middlemen: Why India's GST Is a Game Changer


Seized vehicles. Bribes. Days-long delays. Moving goods across Indian states isn't exactly easy -- and that's a major barrier to economic growth.

Rolling a truck of vegetables into Gujarat, the state once governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requires a bribe of 500 rupees to 2,000 rupees evenwith your papers in order, according to Rakesh Kaul, vice-president of Caravan Roadways Ltd.,which has about 400 trucks plying India's pot-holed roads.
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Disappointed by Failed VAT Proposal, Scicluna Reviews Maltas EU Presidency


The lack of agreement on an e-book VAT proposalwas both a surprise and a disappointment, Edward Scicluna, president of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council, told members of the European Parliament (MEPs) during a June 19 meeting of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
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$1.5 trillion of assets move through the British Virgin Islands twice as much as previously thought


Assets held offshore in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) areworth $1.5 trillion (£1.19 trillion), double the International Monetary Fund's 2010 estimate. That's according to a new report by Capital Economics, seen by the Financial Times.
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EU Fails to Agree on Reduced VAT Rates, Reverse Charge Mechanism


European finance ministers failed to reach an agreement on two important VAT files that the Maltese presidency of the Council of the EU had hoped to close on June 16. Aswas expected, the Czechs blocked an agreement on reduced VAT rates on e-books because they didn't getwhat theywanted on a proposal thatwould allow them to apply a general reverse charge mechanism.
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Nigeria Ratifies Treaties to Curb Tax Evasion by Multinationals


Nigeria has ratified multilateral conventions on tax related treaties to end profit shifting and tax evasion by multinational companies.

The ratification of the treatieswednesday followed the approval of a memo submitted by the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun,who said thiswas part of government's plan towiden its tax base and improve revenue generation.
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India Signals Tax Overhaul on Track as Timing Questioned


Indian officials are signaling a sweeping tax reformwill go ahead as scheduled on July 1, pushing back against speculation the governmentwill delay amid predictions of chaos from some business groups.
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New tax treaty will close loopholes that allow multinationals to avoid tax


Australia,with another 70 countries, has signed a multilateral treaty to create more coherence in fighting tax avoidance by large multinational corporations. The Multilateral Convention to Implement Treaty Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, or BEPS Convention, aims to close loopholes in the international tax system that result from differences in individual country tax systems.
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U.K. Vote Adds to Uncertainty Over Tax and Brexit


U.K. Prime Minister Theresa Maywill form a governmentwith the support of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to "provide certainty and lead Britain forward," after the June 8 general election that May had hopedwould deliver "strong and stable" government but instead produced a hung Parliament.
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Concessions given to selected sectors as India ploughs ahead with major tax reform


A series of last-minute concessions to critics of the incoming nationwide goods and services tax (GST)will see rates lowered on 66 different items, ranging from school bags and cinema tickets to levies on labour in industries like textiles.
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CCCTB Would Cost Ireland Billions, Business Association Claims


An EU common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB)would cost Ireland ÔøΩ4 billion a year in tax revenue, according to a projection by the Irish business association Ibec.

Member states are considering a proposal for a common corporate tax base, advocated by EU Tax Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, as a first step toward greater tax harmonization.
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India Signs Tax Super-Treaty With Some Reservations


India June 7 entered into a super-treaty thatwill overhaul the global tax ecosystem, but indicated reservations over recently negotiated tax treatieswith Mauritius, Singapore and Cyprus.

The multilateral instrumentwill swiftly modify more than 2,000 active tax treaties to incorporate the action items from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Base Erosion and Profit Shifting initiative,which is aimed at expanding the global tax net, easing the flow of information between countries, and curbing tax avoidance by multinational corporations.
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EU to Shed Light on Tax Planning Schemes


Therewill soon be no more place to hide in the EU. On June 21 the European Commissionwill unveil new plans to require tax advisers to disclose to tax authorities the tax planning arrangements they design.
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Ukraine Clarifies Transfer Pricing, Corporate Tax, and VAT Matters


The Ukrainian State Fiscal Service (SFS) has released three Guidance Letters inwhich it clarified transfer pricing, corporate tax, and VAT matters.
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David Cameron vowed to crack down on offshore tax evasion so why has it disappeared from the Tory manifesto?


In all the election noise, you are unlikely to have heard anything about a paragraph appearing on the 124th page of the Labour Manifesto – even though it is a manifesto pledge that could transform theworld in a truly fundamentalway.
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40 Countries to Adopt New Permanent Establishment Provision in MLI


Approximately 40 of the countries that sign onto the OECD's multilateral instrument (MLI)will reportedly adopt the revised permanent establishment standard, Tax Analysts has learned.
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