International
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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.
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May 07, 2024
EU Pauses Drive For Deal On Energy Tax
The chair of European Union finance ministers gave up attempts to reach an agreement on a landmark energy taxation law because of sharply diverging views among EU countries, a source from Belgium's EU presidency confirmed Tuesday.
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May 07, 2024
Austrian Finance Chief Backs Tax Breaks For Full-Time Work
Austria's finance minister said he backed proposals to use the tax system to encourage individuals to work full time, including freeing overtime work from taxation.
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May 07, 2024
Treasury Floats Foreign Trust Reporting Rules
The U.S. Treasury Department proposed regulations Tuesday that provide guidance on the requirements for individuals to report their transactions with foreign trusts to the Internal Revenue Service, including the receipt of large gifts.
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May 06, 2024
10th Circ. Urged To Alter Substance Finding In Liberty Global
To preserve the stability of federal tax law, the Tenth Circuit should reverse a lower court's finding that it needn't determine the economic substance doctrine is relevant before disallowing a transaction's tax benefits, the National Foreign Trade Council said Monday, supporting telecommunications firm Liberty Global.
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May 06, 2024
Man's FBAR Filing Makes Challenge Moot, 7th Circ. Says
The Seventh Circuit upheld Monday the dismissal of a man's challenge to the constitutionality of filing reports of foreign accounts because after filing the suit, the man reported his bank account, making the case moot.
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May 06, 2024
Japan Floats Top Seat For Small Islands At UN Tax Convention
The United Nations committee responsible for negotiating a framework convention on tax should have a co-chair for small island states in a subgroup that leads drafting of proposals, Japan's government said Monday.
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May 06, 2024
Marcum Expands Into Mich. By Adding Croskey Lanni
Accounting and advisory firm Marcum LLP acquired Detroit-based Croskey Lanni PC, adding six partners and more than 50 associates, Marcum announced Monday.
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May 06, 2024
Austrian Tax Investigations Collected €49M In 2023
Austrian tax investigators carried out 210 investigations in 2023, securing a total of €48.86 million ($52.6 million) in back taxes, with perpetrators possibly owing as much as €100 million in fines, the country's finance ministry said Monday.
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May 06, 2024
EU Court Asked To Rule On Italian Nix Of Biz Tax Deductions
The European Union's highest court was asked to rule on Italy's policy denying Italian parent companies certain tax deductions of corporate taxes paid by their subsidiaries in other EU countries, a question arising from an Italian bank's court challenge, a document published Monday showed.
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May 06, 2024
Macron-Backed Group Backs G20 Wealth Tax In Election Pitch
A group campaigning in the European Parliament elections that is backed by French President Emmanuel Macron supports a wealth tax in the world's largest economies, according to a campaign platform published Monday.
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May 04, 2024
IRS Seeks More Info On Purpose Test In Buyback Tax Regs
The IRS is seeking more information on fine-tuning a test in proposed rules on the stock buyback tax meant to assess whether the principal purpose of a U.S. subsidiary's funding purchase of its foreign parent's stock is to avoid the tax, an agency attorney said Saturday.
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May 03, 2024
US Resisting More Scoping On Amount B, Economist Says
In negotiations over the streamlined transfer pricing approach for baseline marketing and distribution functions known as Amount B, the U.S. has resisted calls for additional scoping criteria that would exclude more companies from the safe harbor, a former U.S. Treasury economist said Friday.
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May 03, 2024
Foreign Trust Reporting Rules Coming Soon, IRS Official Says
The Internal Revenue Service is about to issue proposed regulations that will provide guidance on the reporting obligations for individuals who have transactions with foreign trusts, an agency official said Friday.
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May 03, 2024
HMRC Director Rejoins KPMG To Boost Tax Dispute Offering
A former deputy director at HM Revenue & Customs has returned to KPMG as director of KPMG Law's tax disputes teams, the firm has announced.
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May 03, 2024
Africa Seeks Early UN Reform On Transfer Pricing, Exchanges
Legally binding protocols that reform transfer pricing and exchange of information to the benefit of all countries where multinational corporations operate should be developed simultaneously with the U.N. framework convention on global tax, the U.N.'s African bloc, India and others said Friday.
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May 03, 2024
Estonia Implements 2 EU Tax Laws After Delays
Estonia officially enacted two European Union-wide tax measures that it was late putting into national law, both relating to the OECD's standards for global minimum taxation of large companies.
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May 03, 2024
Aussie Treasury Seeks Input On Powers After PwC Scandal
With investigations into PwC Australia's leak of classified tax plan documents ongoing, the Australian government is asking the public whether it thinks its regulatory powers over tax and accounting firms are sufficient, its Treasury announced Friday.
Expert Analysis
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A Look At Global Tax Enforcement Developments: Part 1
Excerpt from Practical Guidance
Sean Craig at LexisNexis looks at how international initiatives, such as the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement, are addressing cryptocurrency-related tax evasion, and how the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing demands for governmental welfare programs are driving global tax policy.
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EU Climate Plan Should Involve Taxing Pollution, Not Borders
In order to crack down on greenhouse gas emissions, the European Union proposes to levy carbon emissions at its borders and to overhaul its long-standing energy tax framework, but the latter would hold polluters directly accountable, giving it the better chance for success, says Rebecca Christie at Bruegel.
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Prepare For Global Tax Regime's New Biz Dispute Risks
Companies should take steps to mitigate the business dispute risks of the new international tax framework, which over a hundred countries agreed to in July, as implementing the new regime will be expensive and require substantial organizational restructuring efforts, says Tim McCarthy at Dykema.
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Prepare For More Audits Of Tax Info And Withholding Filings
Financial institutions and other corporate taxpayers should focus compliance efforts on tax information reporting and withholding, given recent indications from the Biden administration that the IRS will increase enforcement, and the administration's need to fund its infrastructure plan and other costly initiatives, say attorneys at Mayer Brown.
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Anti-Boycott Compliance Still Key In UAE Business Dealings
Notwithstanding recent amendments to U.S. anti-boycott laws that reflect the United Arab Emirates' withdrawal from the Arab boycott of Israel, companies doing business in the UAE and elsewhere still need to maintain effective anti-boycott compliance programs to avoid reporting violations or penalties, says Howard Weissman at Miller Canfield.
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9th Circ. Adds Pressure To Reject Substance Over Form
The Ninth Circuit’s recent decision rejecting taxes on a family's Roth IRA payments that were made through a foreign sales corporation represents a refreshing trend among federal appeals courts to reject substance-over-form principles and instead look to congressional intent, say Lawrence Hill and Caitlin Tharp at Steptoe & Johnson.
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Will The OECD Plan Fix International Taxation?
Lilian Faulhaber at Georgetown Law breaks down the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s plan for international tax reform, recently joined by 130 countries, and whether it will solve the problems it was designed to address, including the need for multinational companies to pay their fair share of taxes in the digitized world economy.
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What Biden's Tax Proposals May Mean For Int'l Private Clients
Jennifer Wioncek and Paul D’Alessandro at Bilzin Sumberg discuss the U.S. Department of the Treasury's recently released explanation of the Biden administration's tax proposals and how the changes would affect income and wealth transfer planning for international private clients.
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What Crypto Holders Can Learn From Early-2000s Tax Scandal
The Internal Revenue Service’s recent push to gather information about cryptocurrency accounts is similar to its Swiss bank account investigations of the early 2000s, which should prompt taxpayers to consider voluntarily disclosing transactions before they are individually targeted for enforcement, say Timothy Wagner and Thomas Barnard at Baker Donelson.
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International Tax Reform's Implications For Transfer Pricing
As the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development overhauls the global tax rules on base erosion and profit shifting, and the Biden administration rolls out new U.S. tax proposals, multinational enterprises need to prepare for the effects of these tax changes on their transfer pricing structures, say Mandy Li and Shuang Feng at MGO.
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Justices' Preemptive Tax Challenge Ruling Shows Divisions
The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in CIC Services v. Internal Revenue Service reveals divisions among the justices about when potentially burdensome tax regulations can be challenged, making the holding less clear and less valuable, say George Isaacson and David Swetnam-Burland at Brann & Isaacson.
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Takeaways From 2 New FBAR Rulings
In light of two recent California federal court decisions, capping penalties for nonwillful violations of foreign bank account reporting but broadening the willfulness standard, U.S. taxpayers must be vigilant about understanding their reporting obligations, and prepare for the Internal Revenue Service to target willful conduct, which yields much higher penalties, say Friedemann Thomma and Marianna Felshtiner at Venable.
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El Salvador's Use Of Bitcoin Complicates US Commercial Law
El Salvador recently became the first country to recognize Bitcoin as currency, presenting significant implications for U.S. commercial law as the development will likely trigger the cryptocurrency to now fall within the definition of "money" under the Uniform Commercial Code, say Joe Carlasare and Eric Fogel at SmithAmundsen.