International

  • May 16, 2024

    P&G Exec Says FDII Uncertainty May Sway Cos.' IP Decisions

    The 2017 tax overhaul's measure for foreign-derived intangible income, a regime that gives tax breaks for domestically held intellectual property, faces uncertainty that could be one factor in keeping some companies from repatriating IP, a tax executive for Procter & Gamble said Thursday.

  • May 16, 2024

    Eaton Must Give Up Personnel Docs In Transfer Pricing Probe

    Eaton must comply with an Internal Revenue Service summons for the personnel records of its foreign employees in the government's transfer pricing investigation of the multinational power management company, an Ohio federal judge ruled Thursday.

  • May 16, 2024

    African Tax Admins Promote Use Of Voluntary Disclosures

    Voluntary disclosure programs have been very effective when countries launch them in anticipation of complying with an international standard on automatic exchanges of financial account information, the African Tax Administration Forum said Thursday in guidance on the programs.

  • May 16, 2024

    Kenya Considering Global Minimum Tax, DST Replacement

    Kenya is considering legislation that would implement the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's corporate global minimum tax as well as repeal and replace the country's digital services tax.

  • May 16, 2024

    Germany's 2024 Tax Revenue Estimate Drops By €14B

    Germany's 2024 tax revenue estimate decreased by roughly €14 billion ($15.2 billion) to €950.3 billion from the estimate made last fall, which its finance ministry said Thursday was due to slower-than-expected economic recovery.

  • May 16, 2024

    Suspected Ringleader Of €2M Cosmetics VAT Fraud Arrested

    The suspected ringleader of a value-added tax fraud scheme at a cosmetics company that caused more than €2 million ($2.2 million) in estimated losses has been arrested by Italian police, the European Public Prosecutor's Office said Thursday.

  • May 16, 2024

    EU Tax On Excess Corp Profits Could Yield €107B, Study Says

    A European Union tax on excessive corporate profits could yield about €107 billion ($116 billion) to partly finance the common EU budget or other urgent investments, leftists in the European Parliament said Thursday.

  • May 16, 2024

    Treasury Provides Extra Relief For Bonus Energy Tax Credits

    The U.S. Treasury Department provided additional safe harbors Thursday that clean energy project developers can use to qualify for bonus tax credits for domestically sourcing their steel and aluminum parts in response to the Biden administration's new trade restrictions on solar products from China.

  • May 16, 2024

    Lithuania PM Wants Frozen Russian Assets To Help Ukraine

    Lithuania's prime minister said Thursday that Russia's frozen assets should be used to help Ukraine fight off aggression from its larger neighbor, saying that a recent European decision to use profits from frozen assets should be only a first step.

  • May 15, 2024

    Russian Gas Ex-CFO Can't Nix $44M FBAR Suit, Judge Rules

    The former chief financial officer of a Russian gas company who was sentenced to seven years in prison for hiding money in Swiss banks can't escape the government's civil suit seeking nearly $44 million in reporting penalties, a Florida federal judge ruled Wednesday.

  • May 15, 2024

    EU Court Upholds Ruling Against Spanish Ship Tax Scheme

    The European Union's General Court upheld Wednesday a European Commission ruling that a Spanish tax scheme for ships constructed in the nation's domestic shipyards was incompatible with the EU's internal market.

  • May 15, 2024

    Schulte Roth Adds Ex-Kleinberg Kaplan Partner To Tax Group

    Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP added a former Kleinberg Kaplan Wolff & Cohen PC partner with a focus on private investment funds to its tax group in New York.

  • May 15, 2024

    3 Key Takeaways From Floated Foreign Trust Reporting Rules

    Proposed rules for reporting transactions with foreign trusts recently issued by the U.S. Treasury Department provide breathing room on disclosure requirements for certain offshore retirement accounts, but leave open some questions about classification. Here, Law360 breaks down three sections of the proposed foreign trust reporting regulations.

  • May 15, 2024

    South African Tax Official Says Data Swaps Too Limited

    South Africa's requests to exchange information on taxpayers with authorities around the world are often denied for criminal investigations of tax crimes, while automatic exchanges sometimes lack the full identifying information of taxpayers, the commissioner of the country's tax agency said Wednesday.

  • May 15, 2024

    Taxpayers Let Down By HMRC Digital Service, Says Watchdog

    HM Revenue and Customs has let down taxpayers by failing to deliver better online services, according to a report published on Wednesday by the public spending watchdog.

  • May 15, 2024

    Swiss Seek Feedback On Crypto Information Exchange

    Switzerland's executive body, the Federal Council, is seeking feedback from the public on its plan to adopt two Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development standards that will update the country's automatic exchanges of information to account for crypto-assets, it said Wednesday.

  • May 15, 2024

    11 Arrested In €25M Italian VAT Fraud Case

    Italian police arrested 11 suspects in a value-added tax fraud ring involving electronic products that resulted in losses of over €25 million ($27.2 million), the European Public Prosecutor's Office said Wednesday.

  • May 15, 2024

    Gentiloni Warns EU States Not To Be Too Harsh With Budgets

    European Union tax commissioner Paolo Gentiloni warned EU countries Wednesday not to be too aggressive with budget cuts, even as some may have to take a more restrictive fiscal stance this year and next than had been planned. 

  • May 15, 2024

    German Finance Minister Wants Lower Tax Burden

    Germany's finance minister said he would like to see the tax burden lowered as part of a broader push to make life less burdensome for industry as the country tries to stimulate economic growth.

  • May 15, 2024

    EU Finance Ministers Plan Road To Tax Revamp

    European Union finance ministers agreed on a work program to implement about 40 measures to improve business financing, including a targeted makeover of tax systems in member countries covering corporate taxes, capital gains and tax breaks for interest payments.

  • May 14, 2024

    A Fifth Of Big Cos. Use Tax Transparency Standard, Org. Says

    About a fifth of the largest 1,000 public companies worldwide have voluntarily used a public country-by-country reporting standard created by an international independent standards organization, the nonprofit said Tuesday.

  • May 14, 2024

    Law Prof Comes To Treasury's Aid In 3M Transfer Pricing Fight

    The U.S. Department of the Treasury did not act arbitrarily when it wrote transfer pricing regulations that allowed the government to disregard foreign legal restrictions on royalty payments when allocating income to 3M from an affiliate, a law professor told the Eighth Circuit on Tuesday.

  • May 14, 2024

    Solarium Sunbaths Not Tax-Free Wellness, Sweden Says

    After receiving multiple questions about whether paying to sunbathe in a solarium is eligible for Sweden's tax-free wellness allowance, the country's tax agency said Tuesday that such activity is not eligible.

  • May 14, 2024

    Microsemi Calls IRS' Penalty Approval 'Woefully Inadequate'

    An Internal Revenue Service supervisor's sign-off on a transfer pricing penalty for Microsemi was "woefully inadequate" to meet statutory requirements for penalty approval, the semiconductor manufacturer told the U.S. Tax Court.

  • May 14, 2024

    Aussie Budget Proposes Green Credits, Capital Gains Change

    Australia would offer tax credits for hydrogen production and critical mineral mining and update its foreign resident capital gains tax rules as part of a proposed 2024-25 budget released Tuesday.

Expert Analysis

  • Unpacking The New Stock Buyback Tax And Its Exceptions

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    Xenia Garofalo and Kyle Colonna at Eversheds Sutherland discuss provisions of the recently enacted tax on corporate stock repurchases, how its exceptions may be applied and what companies should consider when evaluating the cost of new or existing programs.

  • Inside The OECD Transfer Pricing Documentation Guidance

    Excerpt from Practical Guidance
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    The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's recently modified documentation guidelines can assist tax administrations in developing requirements for transfer pricing risk assessments and evaluations, and help multinational entity taxpayers demonstrate satisfaction of the arm's-length principle, says Neil Aragones at Lexis Tax.

  • A Close Look At The Decentralized Effort To Tax Digital Assets

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    Clarity on taxation is one of the biggest hurdles to mass adoption of cryptocurrency, and although digital asset innovation has consistently outpaced worldwide government regulation, recent efforts in the U.S. and elsewhere hint at an emerging standard, says Joshua Smeltzer at Gray Reed.

  • Key Takeaways From IRS Reversal On FDII Stance

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    The Internal Revenue Service's recent memo regarding allocation of deferred compensation expenses for purposes of foreign-derived intangible income is a departure from the agency's previous position and may have implications beyond the context of deferred compensation, say attorneys at Miller & Chevalier.

  • New Tax Decree Suggests Expansion In Dutch Transfer Pricing

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    A July 1 decree from Dutch tax authorities updating transfer pricing guidance heralds a major change in how intercompany financial transactions are considered for transfer pricing purposes and forebodes significant audit activity, say Monique van Herksen and Clive Jie-A-Joen at Simmons and Simmons.

  • Is NJ's Voluntary Transfer Pricing Initiative Really Voluntary?

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    The New Jersey Division of Taxation's voluntary transfer pricing audit initiative promises penalty abatement to taxpayers that elect to participate and agree to the division's proposed adjustments, but the effective penalties associated with nonparticipation raise questions about the program's voluntary nature, say attorneys at McDermott.

  • Global Tax Chiefs Should Look To US Whistleblower Programs

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    As the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement develops its international whistleblower program to address tax evasion and money laundering schemes in new areas like cryptocurrency, it should take lessons from highly successful U.S. programs on which features to include and pitfalls to avoid, say Neil Getnick and Nico Gurian at Getnick & Getnick.

  • What Microcaptive Reporting Ruling May Mean For The IRS

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    In CIC v. Internal Revenue Service, a Tennessee federal court’s decision to set aside an IRS requirement to disclose microcaptive insurance arrangements may be a step toward evidentiary standards to show that the potential for abuse in a lawful transaction is sufficient to support heightened disclosure requirements, says Samuel Lauricia at Weston Hurd.

  • US Should Leverage Tax Rules To Deter Business With Russia

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    The U.S. should further restrict the flow of resources available for the Putin regime's war in Ukraine by denying U.S. businesses that operate in Russia or Belarus foreign tax credits and global intangible low-taxed income preferences, and by terminating its tax treaty with Russia, says Reuven Avi-Yonah at University of Michigan Law School.

  • Justices Must Apply Law Evenly In Shadow Docket Rulings

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    In recent shadow docket decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court has inconsistently applied the requirement that parties demonstrate irreparable harm to obtain injunctive relief, which is problematic for two separate but related reasons, says David Hopkins at Benesch.

  • US Investors Stand To Benefit From Brazil's New Forex Law

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    Brazil's New Foreign Exchange Law facilitates negotiations and reduces bureaucracy for foreign investments, making it a good time for U.S. investors looking for projects with a positive environmental, social and governance impact to allocate funds to Brazilian energy and infrastructure, say Jorge Kamine and Juliana Pimentel at Willkie.

  • A Landmark UK Enforcement Case For Crypto-Assets

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    HM Revenue and Customs' recent seizure of nonfungible tokens from three people under investigation for value-added tax fraud promises to be the first of many such actions against crypto-assets, so investors should preemptively resolve potential tax matters with U.K. law enforcement agencies to avoid a rude awakening, says Andrew Park at Andersen.

  • Simplifying Tax Issues For Nonresident Athletes In Canada

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    Tax compliance can be particularly challenging for nonresident professional athletes playing in Canada, but as NHL contract negotiations approach a close, it's worth looking at some ways the tax burden can be mitigated, say Marie-France Dompierre and Marc Pietro Allard at Davies Ward.

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