International
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July 12, 2024
EU Chair Doesn't Expect Energy Tax Deal This Year
The new chair of European Union finance ministers doesn't expect to reach agreement on a landmark energy taxation law in the next half-year, anticipating only exploratory talks, an official from Hungary's EU presidency said Friday.
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July 11, 2024
House GOP Urges USTR To Probe Canada Digital Services Tax
The U.S. trade representative should immediately launch an investigation into Canada's recently enacted digital services tax and determine if trade actions are necessary to protect American interests, U.S. House Ways and Means Republicans said in a letter Thursday.
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July 11, 2024
ABA Attys Seek To Avoid Reporting Foreign Trust Loans
The American Bar Association's tax, real estate and trust attorneys are seeking to prevent the U.S. Treasury Department from tightening reporting requirements for the exemption of loans from foreign trusts, which are often used by wealthy families and in succession planning, according to a consultation response.
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July 11, 2024
Brazilian Tax Agency Probes Refund Fraud Scheme
Brazilian federal tax authorities and police said Thursday they had conducted a search-and-seizure operation related to the investigation of an income tax refund fraud scheme.
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July 11, 2024
Ex-Leaders Ask Biden For Int'l Coordination On Billionaire Tax
President Joe Biden should get behind Brazil's proposal for the Group of 20 nations to coordinate a minimum tax on billionaires, nearly 20 former presidents and prime ministers from countries such as Canada, France and South Korea said in an open letter.
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July 11, 2024
IRS Proposes 'Basket Contracts' As Listed Transactions
The Internal Revenue Service proposed rules Thursday that would flag so-called basket option contracts as potentially abusive listed transactions, imposing additional reporting requirements under the threat of penalty for individuals and businesses involved in such arrangements.
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July 11, 2024
IRS, OECD Officials Detail Expansion Of AI In Tax Work
The Internal Revenue Service and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development are making great progress in adopting artificial intelligence in tax administration, representatives of both organizations said Thursday.
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July 11, 2024
Israel Says Resident Hid $5.5M In Offshore Bank Accounts
An Israeli resident was released under restrictive conditions Thursday after the government alleged he failed to report foreign bank accounts that held more than 20 million shekels ($5.5 million), according to a statement from the Israel Tax Authority.
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July 11, 2024
Tax Haven Biz Revenues Per Worker Still Far Outpace Norm
Companies recorded median revenues per employee of $1.6 million in low-tax jurisdictions like Ireland, the Cayman Islands and Hong Kong and around $300,000 in all other jurisdictions in 2021, a difference that has narrowed since 2017, the OECD said Thursday.
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July 11, 2024
Biz Officials Call For Simpler Tax Rules In Light Of Pillar 2
Business representatives said Thursday that tax compliance rules need to be simplified as new minimum tax rules, known as Pillar Two, are added to the existing regime.
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July 11, 2024
Failure Of Pillar 1 Would Yield Worse Alternatives, Panel Says
A failure of the Pillar One agreement to reallocate corporate taxing rights would lead to alternatives that are worse, with the return of national digital services taxes worldwide, tax officials and academics said Thursday.
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July 10, 2024
Engineer Who Faced Export Charges Cops To Tax Counts
A Chinese-born engineer has pled guilty to two counts of filing a false tax return related to allegations that he and his wife omitted gross income from their tax returns between 2015 and 2019, after Texas federal prosecutors initially charged the couple with export violations and fraud.
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July 10, 2024
Portugal Enacts Pillar 2 As Part Of Economic, Tax Package
Portugal's Council of Ministers approved the minimum tax provision known as Pillar Two in a package of economic and tax measures designed to boost the country's economic growth, the council announced.
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July 10, 2024
OECD Publishes Pillar 2 Technical Reporting Language Draft
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development published a draft of technical details required to digitally input and disseminate information required for Pillar Two global minimum tax returns Wednesday.
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July 10, 2024
Americans Overseas Ask for Clarity In Foreign Trust Regs
An advocacy group representing U.S. citizens living abroad urged the U.S. Treasury Department to clarify proposed rules for reporting transactions with foreign trusts, contending that guidance should explain which common pension arrangements are exempt from disclosure obligations.
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July 10, 2024
Curtis Mallet-Prevost To Open Law Office In Saudi Arabia
Curtis Mallet-Prevost Colt & Mosle LLP has obtained a license to practice law in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the firm announced this week.
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July 10, 2024
HMRC, CPS Beat Financier's Claim Over Botched Prosecution
HM Revenue and Customs and the Crown Prosecution Service have beaten claims of malicious prosecution and misfeasance in public office by a corporate financier following a failed criminal fraud case, with a judge finding that they had enough evidence to pursue him.
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July 10, 2024
French Left's Tax Pledges May Go Unfulfilled
The tax policy pledges put forward by the leftist bloc of parties that won the most seats in France's legislative election may not be fulfilled given the bloc's failure to win an outright majority.
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July 10, 2024
India's High Court Nixes Challenge To Taxing Of Tour Vehicles
The Indian Supreme Court dismissed a group of petitions challenging border taxes imposed by state governments on tour company vehicles because it said the litigation should have begun in a different court.
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July 10, 2024
Attempts To Scrap EU Tax Veto Are Useless, Hungary Says
Attempts by European Union countries to try to remove the requirement of unanimity for delicate policy decisions such as tax law and adding new EU member states are futile, Hungary's minister for European affairs said Wednesday.
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July 09, 2024
House Panel OKs Tax Breaks For More Education Expenses
The House Ways and Means Committee sent several education-related tax bills to the full House of Representatives on Tuesday, including legislation that would make additional elementary and secondary school expenses eligible for tax-advantaged education savings accounts.
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July 09, 2024
Irish Budget To Allocate €1.4B To Fund Tax Measures in 2025
The Irish government on Tuesday published the details of its €8.3 billion ($9 billion) budget for 2025, including €1.4 billion set aside to fund tax measures.
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July 09, 2024
India High Court Says Rights To Sell Liquor Aren't Taxed
The rights to sell the alcoholic beverage arrack are not taxed because the liquor vendors who purchase them do not fit into the definition of "buyer" under Indian tax law, the Supreme Court of India ruled.
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July 09, 2024
Finnish Tax Take Drops Amid Slowing Real Estate Market
The Finnish government's tax revenue declined 0.4% last year to €42.3 billion ($45.7 billion) as collections from levies on real estate purchases and car registrations each declined by more than 20%, the country's tax authority said Tuesday in a news release.
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July 09, 2024
EU, India Wary Of Overlap From UN's Global Tax Work
Indian and European Union officials agreed during a meeting that the negotiations around a framework convention on international tax cooperation at the United Nations shouldn't overlap efforts of the ongoing OECD-led global tax overhaul, an EU executive department said.
Expert Analysis
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Reserved Investor Fund Would Plug Gap In UK Finance Market
The reserved investor fund recently proposed by HM Treasury has the potential to be a welcome tax-efficient addition to the U.K.’s canon of products for real estate investments, with attractive features for companies and, in particular, large asset managers, say lawyers at Herbert Smith.
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The Reciprocal Tax Bill Is A Warning Shot At Pillar 2
A bill recently introduced in the House of Representatives to reciprocally tax countries deemed to have imposed discriminatory taxes on U.S. citizens and businesses takes aim at countries implementing the global minimum tax treaty known as Pillar Two, with which the U.S. has not complied, says Alan Cole at the Tax Foundation.
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What Tax-Exempt Orgs. Need From Energy Credit Guidance
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.
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How Foreign Info Return Penalty Case May Benefit Taxpayers
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.
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The Nuts And Bolts Of IRS Domestic Content Tax Credit
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.
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Taxing The Digital Economy: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
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.
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Big Tax Changes For Multinational Cos. In Budget Proposal
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.
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Senate Credit Suisse Report Puts Attention On Banks, Trusts
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.
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Seeking IRS Accountability For Faulty Microcaptive Notice
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.
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Biden Admin. Proposals Both Encourage And Thwart EV Adoption
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.
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The Key Issues Keeping Transfer Pricing A Top Tax Concern
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.
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Curtailing Offshore Tax-Advantaged Investment In China
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.
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Cos. May Want To Wait Out US-EU Green Incentives Fight
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.