International
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May 09, 2024
Pension Plans Want Witness Stopped In $2B Danish Dispute
U.S. pension plans accused by Denmark's tax authority of committing $2.1 billion in fraud against the European country by taking illegal refunds on dividends asked a New York federal court to reject the authority's request to depose a witness who pled guilty in Denmark.
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May 09, 2024
Voluntary Carbon Credit Trades Will Trigger UK VAT
Transactions involving voluntary carbon credits in the U.K. will be assessed value-added tax starting in September, HM Revenue & Customs said Thursday.
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May 09, 2024
IRS Turning to Final PFIC Rules This Year, Official Says
The Internal Revenue Service expects to "begin in earnest" this year on final regulations for partnerships that hold stock in passive foreign investment companies, including guidance that would treat partnerships as an aggregate of their partners, an agency official said Thursday.
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May 09, 2024
Country Adjustment Would Undermine Common EU Tax Base
Allowing countries within the European Union to adjust companies' allocated tax base under proposed rules would undermine the rules' goal of streamlining the corporate tax base, according to business groups.
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May 08, 2024
DOJ Says Man Owes $6.2M After Failing To Report Foreign Biz
A man owes tax penalties of $6.2 million to the U.S. after failing to disclose his ownership interests in two foreign entities from 1997 to 2004, the government told a California federal court Wednesday.
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May 08, 2024
Biz Groups Tell 10th Circ. Economic Substance Doesn't Apply
The economic substance doctrine doesn't apply when a business considers tax in making a choice between two legally permissible alternatives, two organizations told the Tenth Circuit in their briefs supporting Liberty Global's position in its $109 million tax refund bid.
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May 08, 2024
4th Circ. Asks If High Court Ruling Bars Credit Suisse Tipster
A Fourth Circuit panel questioned Wednesday whether a U.S. Supreme Court ruling prevented it from reviving a whistleblower case by a former Credit Suisse employee alleging the bank helped U.S. citizens evade taxes after paying a $2.6 billion criminal penalty.
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May 08, 2024
Auto Cos. Brace For EV Battery Compliance Hurdles
New federal regulations aimed at shoring up the domestic electric vehicle manufacturing supply chain give automakers a much-needed two-year cushion to navigate a compliance minefield, and to figure out how to reinvigorate the recent waning consumer demand for electric vehicles.
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May 08, 2024
Africa Should Solve Own Tax Problems, Nigerian Official Says
The solutions to Africa's taxation challenges should come from those actually on the continent, not the Western world, the chairman of Nigeria's tax authority said at an African Tax Administration Forum meeting, the authority said Wednesday.
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May 08, 2024
EGC Won't Annul EU Decision To Toss Spanish Tax Scheme
The European General Court will not annul a European Commission decision that a Spanish tax scheme for vessels built in its domestic shipyards must be abandoned because it was incompatible with the European Union's internal market, according to a judgment released Wednesday.
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May 08, 2024
Ambulance Co.'s Former Owner Gets 6 Years For Tax Evasion
The former owner of an ambulance company was sentenced to more than six years in federal prison for failing to pay employment taxes to the federal government and obstructing the Internal Revenue Service as it tried to collect, according to Virginia federal court documents.
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May 08, 2024
A Foley Hoag Co-Chair Joins Litigation Firm As Name Partner
Litigation and dispute resolution firm Elliott Kwok Levine & Jaroslaw LLP will operate under a new name after welcoming as its newest name partner a former federal prosecutor who most recently co-chaired Foley Hoag LLP's white-collar crime and government investigations practice.
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May 08, 2024
UN To Publish Draft Terms Of Reference For Tax Pact In June
National governments agreed Wednesday to publish the first draft of terms of reference for the United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation for a two-week consultation during the week beginning June 3.
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May 08, 2024
EU Races To Deals On Withholding Tax, Digital VAT
European Union countries are trying to clear the final hurdles for deals on May 14 regarding a withholding tax refund law and a package to modernize value-added tax reporting, although some potential vetoes remain after a preparatory meeting, EU sources said Wednesday.
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May 08, 2024
Offshore Drilling Co. Demands $70M Refund From IRS
The IRS wrongfully withheld $69.7 million in tax refunds to an offshore drilling company, despite acknowledging that the refunds are justified by net operating loss carrybacks authorized by a pandemic law and then promising to pay, the company said in Texas federal court.
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May 08, 2024
EU Agrees To Send Russian Assets' Revenue To Ukraine
European Union countries reached a deal Wednesday to transfer the net income from frozen and immobilized Russian state assets to EU funds for rebuilding Ukraine and buying arms for the country, an EU commissioner said.
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May 08, 2024
EU Discusses Monitoring Measures Against Tax Havens
The European Union is considering an annual monitoring process over defensive measures against tax havens in force in the 27 bloc countries, an EU official said Wednesday.
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May 08, 2024
Slow Tax Decisions By EU States Are Harmful, Lawmaker Says
The slow pace of European Union countries in reaching decisions on tax issues harms the bloc's economy, a conservative member of the European Parliament said in a document sent to journalists Wednesday.
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May 08, 2024
EU Calls For Responses On Information Exchange Law
The European Union's executive branch is seeking responses on the law that governs the exchange of information between tax authorities in the group of 27 nations, as a senior EU tax official said it was time to "assess the need for fine tuning."
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May 07, 2024
Biz Orgs. Ask 10th Circ. To Toss Economic Substance Ruling
The Tenth Circuit must not uphold a Colorado federal court's ruling that it didn't need to determine whether economic substance doctrine was relevant before disallowing an intercompany transaction by Liberty Global Inc., three business groups told the Tenth Circuit in briefs Tuesday.
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May 07, 2024
India's Top Court Upholds Tax On Employee Perks
A catch-all provision in India's tax on employee perks does not grant excessive power to the tax authority, and the tax rate on interest-free loans as perks is not unconstitutional, the Supreme Court of India affirmed Tuesday.
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May 07, 2024
Industry Groups Suggest Changes To Aussie Reporting Rules
A coalition of global fund industry associations asked Australia to further amend its proposal for public country-by-country tax data reporting by including, among other measures, a provision that would allow companies to withhold sensitive information, according to a letter released Tuesday by the U.S. Treasury Department.
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May 07, 2024
India High Court Says Biz's Tax Refunds Can't Be Held Back
Indian tax authorities must refund value-added taxes of 225 million rupees ($2.7 million) to a business instead of withholding them to offset future tax liabilities, the country's top court ruled.
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May 07, 2024
Latin American, Caribbean 2022 Tax Revenue Up, OECD Says
Tax revenue in Latin American and Caribbean countries rose in 2022, thanks in large part to gains in the gas and oil sector, but the average tax-to-gross domestic product ratio in the region still lags behind the OECD average, the organization said Tuesday.
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May 07, 2024
14 Arrested In €15M VAT Fraud Ring Tied To Lubricating Oil
Authorities arrested 14 people as part of an investigation into a crime ring that evaded more than €15 million ($16.1 million) in value-added taxes and other levies tied to lubricating oil, the European Public Prosecutor's Office said Tuesday.
Expert Analysis
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How Law Firms Can Hire And Retain More Black Attorneys
The pipeline of Black lawyers is limited, so BigLaw firms must invest in Black high school students, ensure Black attorneys receive origination credit and take other bold steps to increase Black representation in the industry, says Benjamin Wilson, chairman at Beveridge & Diamond.
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BigLaw Needs More Underrepresented Attorneys As Leaders
Hiring more women, people of color and members of the LGBTQ community to BigLaw positions of power is the first key to making other underrepresented attorneys believe they have an opportunity for a path to leadership, says Ernest Greer, co-president at Greenberg Traurig.
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Advancing Racial Justice In The Legal Industry And Beyond
In addition to building and nurturing a diverse talent pipeline, law firms should collaborate with general counsel, academics and others to focus on injustices within the broader legal system, says Jonathan Harmon, chairman at McGuireWoods.
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Diversity Work Doesn't Have To Be Reserved For Partners
Serving on my firm's diversity committee as an associate has allowed me to improve access, support and opportunity for minority attorneys at the firm, while building leadership skills and fostering meaningful relationships with firm management and industry professionals, says Camille Bent at BakerHostetler.
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Foreign Income Regs Provide Some Clarity But Issues Remain
The U.S. Department of the Treasury recently released final regulations on global intangible low-taxed income and foreign-derived intangible income that largely addressed the numerous technical issues plaguing these sections but left the high GILTI rate and other substantive problems unresolved, says Robert Kiggins at Culhane Meadows.
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New Unified High-Tax Election Brings Planning Challenges
The U.S. Department of the Treasury's recently released high-tax election regulations for global intangible low-taxed income create unwanted planning challenges by conforming to the stricter Internal Revenue Code Subpart F high-tax exclusion, rather than aligning with the GILTI election rules as many hoped, say attorneys at Mayer Brown.
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EU's Tax-Centered State Aid Campaign May Have Peaked
The European Commission's recent tax-related state aid investigations of the likes of Apple, McDonald's and Nike may have reached their limit as changes in international tax rules, the rapid growth of digital companies and COVID-19 reprioritize the commission's anti-competitive initiatives to broader issues focused on tech giants, says Joyce Beebe at Rice University.
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Get Ready For IRS Repatriation Enforcement
Beginning this fall, taxpayers should expect to see IRS enforcement efforts with respect to their repatriation tax liabilities, including audits that will likely focus on taxpayers' earnings and profits calculations, classification of assets as cash versus noncash, and how taxpayers determined foreign tax credits, say David Fischer and Teresa Abney at Crowell & Moring.
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Canadian Tax Ruling Boosts Cross-Border Deal Confidence
The Queen v. Cameco Corp., a recent Canadian appellate decision and the first case to test Canada's transfer pricing recharacterization rules, has significant implications for cross-border intragroup transactions and the intersection of Canadian tax law with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s guidance, says Matt Billings at Duff & Phelps.
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HSBC Suit Shows Challenge Of Designing Tax Relief Laws
Investors' recent lawsuit against HSBC over film-related tax avoidance schemes spotlights the difficult balancing act of crafting practical tax relief legislation while safeguarding against abuse, says Andrew Parkes at Andersen Tax.
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Regulatory Concerns For US Cos.' Offshore Service Centers
As more U.S. companies open and use offshore service-delivery centers amid the pandemic, assessment of important tax, intellectual property, cybersecurity and employment considerations can help mitigate regulatory risk and maximize the company's return on investment, says Sonia Baldia at Baker McKenzie.
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5 Biz Tax Reforms To Aid Long-Term Pandemic Recovery
As Congress negotiates another COVID-19 relief package, it should consider business tax measures that provide liquidity and encourage economic recovery by focusing budgetary resources on activities and circumstances connected to the pandemic and associated economic slowdown, says George Callas at Steptoe & Johnson.
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Altera Could Bolster State Transfer Pricing Scrutiny
The reasoning of the Ninth Circuit's Altera v. Commissioner decision — which the U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to review — could provide state tax authorities with an argument for additional discretion when challenging transfer pricing arrangements between affiliated entities, say attorneys at Eversheds Sutherland.