International
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June 04, 2024
Australian Court Upholds Ex-Chinese Citizen's $7.7M Tax Bill
An Australian court upheld an AU$11.5 million ($7.7 million) tax bill from the Australian Taxation Office to a former Chinese citizen after determining he failed to provide enough evidence to support his alternative tax liability calculation.
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June 04, 2024
Calif. OTA Rejects Couple's Claim Of Bolivia Residency
A California couple owes additional state income tax on a retirement account distribution, the state Office of Tax Appeals said in an opinion released Tuesday, rejecting the pair's assertion that they were domiciled in Bolivia at the time.
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June 04, 2024
EU OKs Italian Renewable Energy Plan Funded By Levy
The European Commission said Tuesday that it approved Italy's plan to introduce a levy on the electricity bills of final consumers to fund construction of renewable energy plants, finding the benefits far outweigh any potential damage to competition and trade.
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June 04, 2024
Spain Sends Pillar 2 Bill To Legislature After EU Pressure
The Spanish government announced Tuesday it has sent a bill to its legislature that would transpose the European Union directive to implement the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's global minimum tax on large corporations following pressure from the bloc.
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June 04, 2024
New Dutch Gov't Seen Returning To Pro-Biz Positions
The incoming conservative Dutch government is expected to adopt tax policies that align with the Netherlands' long-standing reputation as a tax-friendly jurisdiction for businesses, in part by reversing a recently enacted measure that taxed companies' purchases of their own shares.
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June 04, 2024
Luxembourg Candidate Calls To End EU Tax Unanimity Rule
The leading Socialist candidate in the upcoming European parliamentary elections said the European Union should scrap the need for unanimity for all tax decisions, clashing with his home country of Luxembourg's longtime stand that's meant to protect its status as a financial center.
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June 04, 2024
Austrian Authorities Reveal Spike In Fake Companies
The number of fake companies in Austria is increasing, according to data from the Finance Ministry, which said that it hoped a new law would aid in combating the trend.
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June 03, 2024
Danish Tax Agency Says $2.1B Tax Fraud Suits Not Filed Late
Denmark's tax administrator urged a New York federal court to reject bids to toss its suits against U.S. pension plans and individuals it accuses of participating in a $2.1 billion fraud scheme, saying the suits were not filed too late.
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June 03, 2024
Treasury Aims To Salvage Corp. Transparency Act At 11th Circ.
The Corporate Transparency Act is a valid exercise of congressional authority to curb money laundering under the commerce clause and the necessary and proper clause in the Constitution, the U.S. Treasury Department told the Eleventh Circuit on Monday in a bid to restore the law's reporting requirements.
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June 03, 2024
Tax Convictions Withstand Poor Counsel Claim, 4th Circ. Says
A North Carolina man's claim of ineffective counsel is not sufficient reason to vacate his convictions for filing false tax returns and obstructing an official proceeding in a case involving $2.1 million in unreported income sent from Bermuda entities, the Fourth Circuit ruled.
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June 03, 2024
Texas Oil Co. Says IRS Hasn't Paid $36M Promised Refund
The Internal Revenue Service has promised to pay a Texas oil company more than $36 million in tax refunds and credits for the 2009 tax year but has failed to do so, the company told a federal court.
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June 03, 2024
African Gov'ts Made Big Gains From Data Swaps In 2023
African tax authorities made huge headway last year in using the international standard for exchange of information on request to find additional revenues of €2.2 billion ($2.4 billion), which is more than over the past 13 years combined, the OECD reported Monday.
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June 03, 2024
UK Liberal Democrats Call For Buyback Tax, Tripling DST
The U.K. Liberal Democrat party called for a 4% share buyback tax on the 100 largest corporations on the stock market as well as for tripling the country's 2% digital services tax, with the additional revenue generated to be earmarked to benefit schoolchildren.
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June 03, 2024
South Korea Extending Tax Breaks For Growing Businesses
Companies in South Korea that graduate from being considered small and medium enterprises to middle-market enterprises will see the grace period that allows them to continue to receive tax breaks granted to smaller entities extended, the country's finance ministry said Monday.
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June 03, 2024
7 Arrested In €18M Italian VAT Fraud Ring
Financial police in Italy arrested seven suspects Monday in connection with a value-added tax fraud scheme involving beverages that resulted in losses of €18 million ($19.6 million), the European Public Prosecutor's Office said.
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June 03, 2024
EU Court Asked To Rule On Belgian Tax On Dividends
A Belgian court asked the European Union's highest court to rule on whether the country can tax dividends transferred from a subsidiary to a parent company, despite an EU law apparently prohibiting this, a document published Monday showed.
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June 01, 2024
Blockbuster Summer: 10 Big Issues Justices Still Must Decide
As the calendar flips over to June, the U.S. Supreme Court still has heaps of cases to decide on issues ranging from trademark registration rules to judicial deference and presidential immunity. Here, Law360 looks at 10 of the most important topics the court has yet to decide.
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May 31, 2024
3M Tells 8th Circ. IRS Used Invalid Regs For $24M Allocation
Multinational conglomerate 3M reiterated Friday its bid for the Eighth Circuit to reverse a U.S. Tax Court decision allowing the IRS to allocate nearly $24 million from the company's Brazilian affiliate, arguing the agency's adjustment relied on substantively invalid regulations.
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May 31, 2024
IRS Guidance Narrows Spinoffs Available For Preapproval
Recent IRS guidance limiting the types of spinoff transactions that revenue officials will approve as tax-free ahead of time leaves practitioners and corporations to determine whether to pursue certain intercompany reorganizations without the agency's blessing.
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May 31, 2024
Ex-UBS Exec Owes $4.7M In FBAR Penalties, Court Told
A former CEO of Swiss bank UBS' North American group faces a $4.7 million tax bill that the U.S. claims is due because he did not report his foreign bank accounts or assets, according to a suit filed in Connecticut federal court.
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May 31, 2024
US, Bulgaria Sign Country-By-Country Reporting Agreement
The U.S. and Bulgaria signed an agreement Friday on the automatic exchange of country-by-country reports between the nations, Bulgaria's Ministry of Finance said.
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May 31, 2024
Latin American Tax Transparency Generates €2.1B In 5 Years
Tax transparency measures such as exchanges of financial information in Latin American countries have generated nearly €2.1 billion ($2.3 billion) in additional revenue over the past five years, according to an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report.
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May 31, 2024
Calif. Man Owes 6 Years Of FBAR Penalties, IRS Tells Court
A Californian has failed to pay foreign bank account reporting penalties he was assessed that were tied to a business he owed in Mexico for six years, the Internal Revenue Service told a federal court.
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May 31, 2024
Taxation With Representation: Cravath, Cleary, Fried Frank
In this week's Taxation With Representation, T-Mobile buys United States Cellular Corp.'s wireless operations, Energy Transfer plans to buy WTG Midstream, ConocoPhillips acquires Marathon Oil, and Goldman Sachs Alternatives raises over $20 billion for its direct lending strategy.
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May 31, 2024
Denmark's New VAT System Cuts Errors By 30%, Agency Says
A new Danish value-added tax reporting system that digitally cross-checks with data for European Union trade has reduced errors by about 30%, Denmark's tax agency said Friday.
Expert Analysis
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IRS Real Estate Push Should Wake Up Foreign Investors
Two recently announced Internal Revenue Service audit campaigns targeting nonresident alien investment in U.S. real estate should prompt foreign investors to prepare for greater scrutiny as the agency works to improve tax compliance around such transactions, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.
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CFTC Climate Change Report Highlights Costs Of Inaction
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's recent report on climate change and financial markets makes it clear that while government regulation of carbon dioxide pollution may have negative consequences, letting greenhouse gas emissions go unaddressed could harm investors, asset managers and financial institutions, says Nicholas Fox at Goldberg Segalla.
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Dems' Int'l Tax Policy Comes With Unintended Consequences
Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris’ "Made in America" tax policy overstates the importance of revenue raising, which may encourage foreign ownership of global activity and disadvantage U.S.-based companies, says George Callas at Steptoe & Johnson.
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How Cos. Can Respond To Growing Crypto Tax Enforcement
As the U.S. Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service remain laser-focused on abusive cryptocurrency schemes, companies operating in this high-risk industry should review their compliance measures in areas such as data analysis, employee oversight and industry benchmarking, say attorneys at Norton Rose.
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Trump's Tax Tactics May Be Criminal
Apologists who defend President Donald Trump as having shrewdly exploited legal loopholes by deducting dubious consulting fees from his taxes are ignoring major badges of fraud that would have led the Internal Revenue Service to investigate any other taxpayer, says Daren Firestone at Levy Firestone.
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Why Cum-Ex Tax Fraud Probes Are On The Rise
Neil Williams at Rahman Ravelli outlines why European regulatory investigations into cum-ex — a 1990s-era dividend arbitrage trading practice involving tax rebate claims worth tens of billions of euros — are gaining momentum years after the activities that sparked them, and who should be concerned.
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Managing New IRS Global High-Wealth Audits
Global high-wealth individuals on the receiving end of an audit letter under the Internal Revenue Service Large Business and International Division's new program should prepare for a thorough examination process that includes their entire network of persons and affiliated entities, say attorneys at MoFo.
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Employers Should Act Now To Mitigate Remote Work Tax Risk
Where employees have been overseas since the start of COVID-19 and are nearing the 183-day tax threshold, there is little time left for U.S. employers to incorporate tax planning into policies to ensure more flexible working arrangements do not create tax complexities and risks, says Richard Tonge at Grant Thornton.
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Pros And Cons Of State Transfer Pricing Program Participation
A company's decision to settle a transfer pricing dispute through a state program — such as those recently announced by North Carolina and Indiana — will turn on the quality of its documentation, its willingness to pay for certainty and the perceived level of aggressiveness of the state's revenue department, say attorneys at Eversheds Sutherland.
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BigLaw Cannot Reap Diversity Rewards Without Inclusion
BigLaw firms often focus on increasing their diversity numbers, but without much attention to equity and inclusion, minority lawyers face substantial barriers after they get their foot in the door, says Patricia Brown Holmes, managing partner at Riley Safer.
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Ideas For Closing BigLaw's Diversity Gap
If enough law firms undertake some universal diversity best practices, such as connecting minority lawyers to key client relationships and establishing accountability for those charged with spearheading progress, the legal industry could look a lot different in the foreseeable future, says Frederick Nance, global managing partner at Squire Patton.
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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.