International

  • August 19, 2024

    Treasury Floats Timing Shift For Foreign Currency Accounting

    The U.S. Treasury Department proposed regulations Monday that would adjust the timing for when companies could opt to use the so-called mark-to-market accounting method for gains or losses that arise from foreign currency transactions.

  • August 19, 2024

    Swedish Advisory Body Considering Pillar 2 Updates

    A Swedish advisory council is considering a proposal that would add administrative and other clarifications to the country's implementation of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's global minimum tax on large multinational corporations.

  • August 16, 2024

    Kyocera Says It Doesn't Need Records For R&D Credits

    Multinational electronics maker Kyocera said Friday that it wasn't required to keep any specific paperwork to back up its claim to research tax credits, contrary to the U.S. government's claims, according to a filing in South Carolina federal court.

  • August 16, 2024

    UK Dependency Considering Global Minimum Tax Bills

    Jersey is considering draft legislation that would implement the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's 15% minimum tax on multinational entities making over €750 million ($828 million) annually, in line with a declaration from it and other U.K. crown dependencies to do so starting next year.

  • August 16, 2024

    Democratic Gov't Control Could Bolster US' Pillar 2 Plans

    Vice President Kamala Harris and congressional Democrats would likely double down on plans to align the U.S. tax code with the global minimum tax designed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development if they win total control of the federal government in the November elections.

  • August 16, 2024

    UN Votes For Global Services As First Priority Under Tax Pact

    The United Nations voted Friday to make taxation of cross-border services the most prioritized topic for a legally binding agreement to be finalized by late 2027 alongside the organization's framework convention on international tax cooperation.

  • August 16, 2024

    IRS To Let Private Cos. Into Real-Time Biz Audit Program

    The Internal Revenue Service is opening its compliance assurance process real-time audit program to privately held C corporations, including foreign-owned ones, for 2025, the agency announced.

  • August 16, 2024

    Taxation With Representation: Cleary, Kirkland, Skadden

    In this week's Taxation with Representation, Mars Inc. sets a 2024 record with its $36 billion acquisition of Kellanova, Carlyle inks a $3.8 billion purchase with Baxter International Inc., and Performance Food Group Co. agrees to a $2.1 billion cash deal with Cheney Bros. Inc.

  • August 15, 2024

    Doctor Wants Contempt Fine Dropped In Foreign Asset Case

    A doctor who incurred $1.1 million in liabilities for failing to report his foreign bank accounts is asking a Michigan federal court to waive his $20,000 civil contempt fine because the court restricted his only financial assets to paying the liabilities.

  • August 15, 2024

    Tax Pros Navigate Chaos, Rewards In Climate Law's 2nd Year

    Energy tax attorneys have been knee-deep in project finance deals for the past year since the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 triggered a flurry of clean energy investments, but the work, they say, has been fulfilling as part of broader efforts to save the environment.

  • August 15, 2024

    Taxes Could Be Key To Cutting Crypto Emissions, IMF Says

    The growing environmental impact of crypto-asset mining and related data centers could be mitigated with tax measures aimed directly at such facilities, the International Monetary Fund said Thursday.

  • August 15, 2024

    Germany Seeks Input On Tightened Transfer Pricing Rules

    Germany is poised to make multinational corporations responsible for showing the economic necessity of intra-group, cross-border debt relationships when they deduct expenses for financing with borrowed capital, according to a consultation by the federal government.

  • August 15, 2024

    Finland To Have EU's 2nd-Highest VAT Rate Starting Sept. 1

    Finland's general value-added tax rate will jump to 25.5% from 24% starting Sept. 1, the country's tax agency said Thursday, putting it behind only Hungary for the highest VAT rate in the European Union.

  • August 15, 2024

    Aussie Senate Economics Committee OKs 15% Min. Tax Bill

    The Australian Senate's Economics Legislation Committee said it supports the passage of a three-bill package that would implement the OECD's 15% global corporate minimum tax on large multinational entities, sending it to the entire Senate for approval.

  • August 15, 2024

    UK Plastic Packaging Tax Revenue Dipped By 6%

    The U.K. collected £268 million ($344 million) from its tax on certain plastic packaging manufactured in or imported into the country in the 2023-2024 fiscal year, down 6% from the £285 million the year prior, HM Revenue & Customs said Thursday.

  • August 14, 2024

    PwC Owes $11M For Tax Errors, Real Estate Group Says

    PwC should pay £8.9 million ($11.4 million) in damages to a real estate group for miscalculating its tax liabilities and mispricing its properties, which prompted several additional assessments and penalties, according to a claim in a London court.

  • August 14, 2024

    Baker McKenzie Adds Tax Expert To Monterrey Office

    Baker McKenzie has added a partner from Turanzas Bravo & Ambrosi to its Monterrey, Mexico, office who brings more than 15 years of experience practicing international trade law with a focus on taxation and customs-related litigation.

  • August 14, 2024

    Kenya Tax Court Finds Chinese Firm Dodged $7.8M VAT

    A Kenyan tax court affirmed an assessment that found a China-based firm used a series of shell companies to dodge over 1 billion Kenyan shillings ($7.8 million) in value-added tax payments, the Kenya Revenue Authority said Wednesday.

  • August 14, 2024

    Swiss Seeking Input On Delays Of Crypto-Asset Info Exchange

    Switzerland's executive body, the Federal Council, is looking for public input on when it should begin automatically exchanging financial information regarding crypto-assets with countries with which it already has set up general automatic exchange of information agreements, its finance ministry said.

  • August 14, 2024

    EU General Court Jurisdiction Expanded To VAT Cases

    The General Court of the European Union will be able to make preliminary rulings in cases involving the EU's common system of value-added taxes starting Oct. 1, following an expansion of the court's jurisdiction.

  • August 14, 2024

    Pros Lament Lack Of Ownership Clarity In New EU Law

    The lack of a clear beneficial ownership definition in new European Union legislation designed to speed up the repayment of withholding taxes represents a missed opportunity — and could cause confusion for investors about whether they are in fact eligible for a refund, tax professionals say.

  • August 14, 2024

    Other Price Rises Offset German Tampon VAT Cut, Study Says

    Germany's reduction in the value-added tax on female sanitary products, such as tampons, has led to higher prices on panty liners, a Munich-based think tank said in a news release Wednesday.

  • August 13, 2024

    Walz Backed Tax Hikes Funding Plans For Children, Families

    As Minnesota's governor, Democrat Tim Walz, now the presumed vice presidential nominee of his party, separated himself from most other governors by signing into law numerous tax increases funding progressive priorities such as a paid family leave plan and the nation's largest child tax credit.

  • August 13, 2024

    Treasury's Loss Rules Take Broad Approach To Min. Tax Deal

    The U.S. Treasury Department recently dashed the hopes of multinational corporations seeking regulations that would have carved out an international minimum tax agreement from interacting with long-standing domestic rules aimed at preventing companies from using the same economic loss twice.

  • August 13, 2024

    Firm Asks Court To Reconsider $1.5M Freeze In Tax Dispute

    A Baltimore law firm that sued the IRS for freezing $1.5 million in its operating account to satisfy a client's tax debts told a Maryland federal court it was "dead wrong" in denying the firm's request to release the money without going to trial.

Expert Analysis

  • What Tax-Exempt Orgs. Need From Energy Credit Guidance

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    Guidance clarifying the Inflation Reduction Act’s credit regime, expected from the U.S. Department of the Treasury this summer, should help tax-exempt organizations determine the benefits of clean energy projects and integrate alternative energy investments into their activities, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • How Foreign Info Return Penalty Case May Benefit Taxpayers

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    The U.S. Tax Court's recent decision that the Internal Revenue Service cannot penalize taxpayers for failing to file foreign corporation information returns may give similarly situated taxpayers an opportunity to also avoid penalties, provided they protect their rights before the decision is overturned or mooted by legislation, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

  • The Nuts And Bolts Of IRS Domestic Content Tax Credit

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    Recent IRS guidance provides specifics on how renewable energy projects can qualify for bonus tax credits by meeting U.S. domestic content rules, but also creates a qualification framework that will be complicated for project developers to navigate, say Scott Cockerham and Wolfram Pohl at Orrick.

  • Taxing The Digital Economy: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

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    U.S. tech companies should watch for important developments in international taxation, including the resolution of Apple's decade-old state aid case, growing frustration with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's global tax plan and adoption of the digital services tax instead, says Joyce Beebe at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.

  • Big Tax Changes For Multinational Cos. In Budget Proposal

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    The Biden administration’s fiscal year 2024 budget proposes changes that would materially alter decades-old Internal Revenue Code provisions, requiring a shift in multinational corporations' tax planning strategies comparable to that required after enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, say Xenia Garofalo and Kyle Colonna at Eversheds Sutherland.

  • Senate Credit Suisse Report Puts Attention On Banks, Trusts

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    The Senate Finance Committee's recent finding that Credit Suisse violated a plea agreement struck over its role in enabling offshore tax evasion has important ramifications for banks and trusts, including how they onboard, document and report on transactions relevant to U.S. reporting requirements, say Will Barry and Ian Herbert at Miller & Chevalier.

  • Seeking IRS Accountability For Faulty Microcaptive Notice

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    Like the taxpayers in Standard Insurances v. U.S. seeking to expand earlier wins in microcaptive insurance cases that limit IRS use of improperly obtained information, others should consider ways to hold the agency accountable and provide incentive for it to follow the law going forward, says Joshua Smeltzer at Gray Reed.

  • Biden Admin. Proposals Both Encourage And Thwart EV Adoption

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    While the Biden administration has been aggressively focused on promoting electric vehicles from the start, its recently issued guidance on EV tax credits and its restrictive new auto emissions proposal create a sense of implementation whiplash that may frustrate manufacturers and consumers, says Levi McAllister at Morgan Lewis.

  • The Key Issues Keeping Transfer Pricing A Top Tax Concern

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    Several challenges preventing a global economic reemergence from the pandemic era are making practitioners reevaluate commonly used transfer pricing models, and embrace new technologies and ways of doing business, say Farnaz Amini and Sophia Castro Jurado at Marcum.

  • Curtailing Offshore Tax-Advantaged Investment In China

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    The U.S. government's plans to establish a new outbound investment regime hold the potential to arrest Chinese companies' increasing use of offshore, tax-advantaged locations to raise capital, says David Plotinsky at Morgan Lewis.

  • Cos. May Want To Wait Out US-EU Green Incentives Fight

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    As the European Union considers measures to compete with the Inflation Reduction Act's incentives for U.S. production of clean tech, and EU and U.S. officials discuss a possible compromise, companies in the green sector should consider taking a wait-and-see approach to investment decisions, says Todd Thacker at Goldberg Segalla.

  • India's Budget Proposals May Ease Entry For Certain Sectors

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    India’s recently released budget includes proposals to facilitate doing business in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City and moderate thousands of compliance requirements, opening up new opportunities for foreign businesses in the digital infrastructure, manufacturing and renewable energy sectors, say Mukesh Butani and Seema Kejriwal at BMR Legal.

  • High Court Ax Of Atty-Client Privilege Case Deepens Split

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's recent dismissal of In re: Grand Jury as improvidently granted maintains a three-way circuit split on the application of attorney-client privilege to multipurpose communications, although the justices have at least shown a desire to address it, say Trey Bourn and Thomas DiStanislao at Butler Snow.

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