International
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May 14, 2024
British Industry Group Calls For Green Energy Tax Breaks
The U.K. needs to "outsmart rather than outspend" other countries to grow in the green energy sector, a British business advocacy group said, calling for the government to create a 40% so-called green innovation tax credit, among other tax breaks.
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May 14, 2024
Ex-Whiteford Taylor Business Co-Chair Joins Baker Donelson
Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz PC has welcomed a new shareholder who spent more than a decade with the Internal Revenue Service and previously co-chaired Whiteford Taylor & Preston LLP's business department, the firm announced on Monday.
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May 14, 2024
EU Finance Ministers Strike Deal On Withholding Tax Refunds
European Union finance ministers agreed Tuesday to a withholding tax refund law, as previous holdouts Poland and the Czech Republic withdrew their objections.
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May 14, 2024
EU Chair To Fight On For VAT Deal After Estonia's Rejection
The chair of the European Union's council of finance ministers said he will fight to get unanimous support for a wide-ranging reform of value-added tax rules after Estonia blocked agreement to the law Tuesday.
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May 14, 2024
Aussie Senate Faces Separation Of Promoter Penalty, Gas Tax
The Australian government is poised to double the penalty for corporate promoters of tax avoidance schemes, but it may first have to compromise by separating its bill from another one dealing with a tax on offshore gas exports, according to a legislative report.
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May 13, 2024
Corp. Transparency Act An Overbroad Dragnet, 11th Circ. Told
Congress exceeded its authority in passing the Corporate Transparency Act, which prompted the U.S. Treasury Department to solicit personal information for law enforcement purposes from those that registered and owned state-registered entities, a small-business group told the Eleventh Circuit on Monday.
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May 13, 2024
House GOP Bills Target Foreign Funding To Tax-Exempt Orgs
The House Ways and Means Committee will vote Wednesday on a package of bills that would increase scrutiny of foreign donations to tax-exempt organizations, including legislation that would require those organizations to publicly report the donations, the Joint Committee on Taxation announced Monday.
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May 13, 2024
Income Nixes Exxon's 'Final Loss' Deduction, Court Says
Exxon's Norwegian operation cannot deduct 900 million krone ($83.2 million) from its fiscal year 2012 taxable income that it spent liquidating an Exxon subsidiary in Denmark, a European court ruled Monday.
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May 13, 2024
2nd Circ. Won't Revive UBS Suit Over Disclosed Account Info
The Second Circuit declined Monday to revive a couple's suit accusing UBS of fraudulently flagging an account to the Internal Revenue Service, finding that any alleged harm resulting from an audit would have been caused by the agency itself.
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May 13, 2024
Int'l Authorities Want Increased Anti-Money Laundering Efforts
Countries need to do more to tackle the "huge illicit profits" being generated by international crime organizations and used for harmful practices such as funding terrorism, the heads of the Financial Action Task Force, Interpol and a United Nations group said Monday.
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May 13, 2024
Estonia Needs To Improve Property, Health Taxes, OECD Says
While Estonia has the lowest ratio of government debt to gross domestic product of any OECD country, it has numerous areas where it could improve its tax system, from broadening its tax base to increasing healthcare funding, the OECD said Monday.
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May 13, 2024
EU Initiative Pushes Bloc To Strengthen Carbon Taxing
The European Commission on Monday officially registered a citizen initiative to focus on accelerating the taxing of greenhouse gas emissions as well as making it more equitable, giving the group behind it a year to meet certain criteria that would force the European Union's executive arm to act.
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May 13, 2024
Houston Truck Co. Doesn't Owe $2M Excise Tax, 5th Circ. Told
A Houston truck company that sells tires made by a Chinese manufacturer doesn't owe $2 million in import taxes because it's not legally the tire importer, the company told the Fifth Circuit in asking it to affirm a ruling that could split circuits.
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May 13, 2024
Estonia Objecting To VAT Proposal On 'Neutrality' Grounds
Estonia is objecting to a proposed overhaul of European Union value-added tax rules because the proposal doesn't respect the principle of "neutrality," the country's finance minister said Monday, casting doubt on the fate of the proposal, which needs agreement by all 27 EU countries to pass.
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May 13, 2024
EU Chair Offers Compromise To Clinch Withholding Tax Deal
The chair of European Union finance ministers offered last-minute concessions to try to persuade holdouts the Czech Republic and Poland to agree to a withholding tax refund law, a document published Monday showed.
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May 11, 2024
Gov't Urges 8th Circ. To Uphold 3M's $24M Pricing Adjustment
The U.S. government asked the Eighth Circuit to uphold a U.S. Tax Court decision allowing the IRS to allocate nearly $24 million from 3M's Brazilian affiliate, arguing the company's appeal involves misplaced reliance on a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
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May 10, 2024
5 Goals Gov'ts Have For The UN Tax Convention
Transfer pricing, country-by-country reporting, wealth taxation, the digital economy and the participation of developing countries in negotiations are topics governments at the United Nations said they want to address during the first session on drafting terms of reference for the Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation.
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May 10, 2024
Austria Eyes Fines For Fake Invoices Used In Tax Fraud
People creating false invoices in Austria could face fines of up to €100,000 ($108,000) as the country looks to crack down on tax fraud involving fictitious businesses, the country's Ministry of Finance said Friday.
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May 10, 2024
DC Tax Atty Can't Use Ch. 7 To Ditch Depo In $19M Theft Suit
A corporate D.C. tax attorney accused of bilking a former client out of $19 million via a captive insurance scam will be deposed, despite a stay in the Maryland federal case against him and his firm after both filed for bankruptcy.
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May 10, 2024
Use Of AI For Tax Comment Letters Poses Ethical Quandaries
While artificial intelligence can streamline the process of conducting a comprehensive review of complex, IRS-proposed federal tax regulations, tax attorneys must be aware of professional and ethical considerations when using it to help draft comment letters to submit to the agency.
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May 10, 2024
Australia Looks To Tweak Tax Exemption For US Entertainers
Australia wants public comments on a proposal that would simplify the elimination of withholding taxes for U.S. entertainers who make $10,000 or less — or the Australian equivalent — in the country in a given year, the Australian Taxation Office said.
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May 10, 2024
Calif. OTA In Untested Area On Ruling That Biz Wants Binding
A decision by California's Office of Tax Appeals that Microsoft can include 100% of the dividends from foreign affiliates in its California sales factor denominator pleased businesses, who now want the OTA to designate the opinion as precedential, thus binding on it and the state Franchise Tax Board.
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May 10, 2024
Osborne Clarke Lawyer To Face Tribunal Over Zahawi SLAPP
An Osborne Clarke LLP partner who represented Nadhim Zahawi could face a disciplinary tribunal over allegations that he used intimidatory warnings in an attempt to silence a critic who was probing the former Conservative chancellor's tax affairs.
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May 09, 2024
Mich. Doctor Ordered To Stay In Jail Until Assets Repatriated
A Michigan doctor fighting accusations that he failed to report his foreign bank accounts will stay in jail, as a federal court declined to release him Thursday when he didn't comply with an order to deposit over $1 million to cover the judgment against him.
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May 09, 2024
Pop Star Shakira's €6.6M Spanish Tax Fraud Case Dropped
A Spanish court dropped a case alleging that Colombian pop superstar Shakira had willfully defrauded the country of €6.6 million ($7.1 million) worth of taxes in 2018, multiple news outlets reported Thursday.
Expert Analysis
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Steps For Universities As DOJ Shifts Foreign Influence Policy
Notwithstanding Wednesday's U.S. Department of Justice announcement terminating the initiative targeting Chinese influence and raising the bar for criminal prosecutions, universities should ensure their compliance controls meet new disclosure standards and that they can efficiently respond to inquiries about employees' foreign connections, say attorneys at Covington.
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Why I'll Miss Arguing Before Justice Breyer
Carter Phillips at Sidley shares some of his fondest memories of retiring Justice Stephen Breyer both inside and out of the courtroom, and explains why he thinks the justice’s multipronged questions during U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments were everything an advocate could ask for.
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Corporate Reporting Considerations As Tax Meets ESG
With the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing season upon us amid increasing pressure for greater transparency around effective tax rates and tax strategies, multinational companies must decide how they will approach voluntary tax reporting and prepare their responses if they want to control the narrative, say Michael Lebovitz and Jenny Austin at Mayer Brown.
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The Highs And Lows Of Tax Controversy In 2021
Lawrence Hill at Steptoe & Johnson reviews the ups and downs of tax controversy practice in 2021, including the continued effects of the pandemic, troubling decisions on attorney-client privilege and an IRS comeback on transfer pricing.
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Lessons From IRS For A New HMRC Whistleblowing Model
Andrew Park at Andersen considers whether the public interest would be better served in allowing the U.K.'s tax enforcers, HM Revenue & Customs, to offer larger and more certain cash incentives to people blowing the whistle on tax misdemeanors — similar to the IRS model for whistleblowers.
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The Benefits Of Competent Authority In Int'l Tax Disputes
Multinational enterprises seeking relief from double taxation in a changing international tax landscape should consider utilizing the competent authority process, which provides both taxpayers and domestic tax regulators an efficient and effective means of dispute resolution, say David Farhat and Eman Cuyler at Skadden.
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How OECD Transfer Tax Initiative Affects Smaller Businesses
Small and midsize enterprises with cross-border transactions need to consider redefining tax strategies and operational models in light of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's base erosion and profit shifting initiative, even though the agency's new tax guidelines are aimed at large multinational enterprises, says Ganesh Ramaswamy at Kreston Rangamani.
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What The New OECD Double-Tax Procedure Statistics Tell Us
Monique van Herksen and Clive Jie-A-Joen at Simmons & Simmons consider the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s recent report on double taxation cases resolved in 2020 under the mutual agreement procedure process, and examine whether the process has improved dispute resolution mechanisms since its implementation five years ago.
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Navigating FCPA Risks Of Minority-Owned Joint Ventures
The U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will likely continue to focus on third-party risks under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, so companies with minority-owned joint ventures should take several steps to mitigate related compliance challenges, say Ben Kimberley at The Clorox Company and Addison Thompson at Covington.
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Questions To Ask If Doing Business In A Corruption Hot Spot
Businesses facing new scrutiny after the U.S. Department of Justice's recently announced task force for combating human trafficking in Central America, the release of the Pandora Papers and continuing fallout from 2019's Panama Papers, should address compliance risks by having employees ask three questions about every transaction, say attorneys at White & Case.
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How The Global Tax Agreement Could Backfire For Biden
If the $3.5 trillion spending package fails, the federal tax code will not conform to the recent 15% global minimum tax agreement spearheaded by the U.S., which would embarrass the Biden administration and could lead to retaliatory tax measures by other nations, says Alex Parker at Capitol Counsel.
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Pandora Papers Reveal Need For Greater Tax Enforcement
The recent Pandora Papers leak is a reminder of the importance of transparency laws and proper funding for enforcement efforts against tax evasion as bad actors increasingly operate in the shadows, says Daren Firestone and Kevin Crenny at Levy Firestone.
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Parsing New Int'l Tax Reporting Rules For Pass-Throughs
Attorneys at Grant Thornton unpack the Internal Revenue Service’s new pass-through entity reporting requirements for international tax matters and the accompanying guidance for penalty relief, and suggest how companies should prepare for what may be the most significant change to the partnership compliance function in decades.