International
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May 03, 2024
Final EV Tax Credit Regs Add New Battery Tracing Test
The U.S. Treasury Department unveiled final regulations Friday for the up to $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit that include a more detailed process for automakers to trace the battery supply chain to qualify for the credit's domestic content requirements.
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May 03, 2024
German's Austrian Ski Holiday Ends With Arrest In VAT Probe
A German citizen on a skiing holiday in Austria was arrested over a large-scale value-added tax fraud scheme, the Finance Ministry in Vienna said in a statement on Friday.
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May 02, 2024
Claimed Panama Papers Leaker Fights To Hide ID In €5M Suit
A person claiming to be the Panama Papers leaker told a federal court they would fear for their life if the court made them disclose their identity in a €5 million ($6.3 million) suit against Germany, protesting a magistrate judge's suggestion that the suit be tossed because the person wouldn't identify themselves.
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May 02, 2024
IRS To Boost Audit Rates By 50% On Wealthy, Werfel Says
The Internal Revenue Service plans to nearly triple audit rates on corporations with assets over $250 million and increase audit rates by more than 50% on wealthy taxpayers with more than $10 million in total positive income by 2026, Commissioner Daniel Werfel said Thursday.
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May 02, 2024
Latest Stock Buyback Tax Rules May Still Have Wide Reach
The U.S. Treasury Department recently floated regulations that narrow an earlier proposal aimed at preventing foreign-parented corporations from circumventing a new excise tax on stock buybacks, but the regulations still characterize avoidance in ways that could include routine intercompany transactions.
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May 02, 2024
HMRC Asked To Investigate Firm On Dodging Sanctions
HM Revenue & Customs should investigate a German-owned garage door manufacturer for violating sanctions by importing products from Belarus into the U.K., but instead authorities brushed off the case and now the company might receive a license, a U.K. lawmaker said.
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May 02, 2024
Canada Budget Seeks To Establish Corp. Min. Tax Standards
Budget proposals submitted to Canada's Parliament by the finance minister would implement the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's global corporate minimum tax standards as part of the country's overarching budget plans.
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May 02, 2024
OECD-Asia Group Helping Reform Agenda, OECD Head Says
A group that brings together countries from the mostly Western Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and Southeast Asia to discuss issues, including tax, is helping countries make changes, the head of the OECD said Thursday.
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May 02, 2024
Airlines Slam Increase In German Air Passenger Tax
The increase in Germany's air passenger tax on May 1 will weaken the country's economy and damage the aviation industry's ability to cut down on its carbon use, an airline group said on Thursday.
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May 01, 2024
No Relief For Fla. Adviser Convicted In $80M Trading Scam
The Eleventh Circuit on Wednesday affirmed the conviction of a Florida investment adviser who bilked more than $80 million from the hundreds of people he persuaded to invest in a fraudulent company, after concluding he was not in custody when he made statements to the police.
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May 01, 2024
Middle East, North African Gov'ts Back UN For Corp. Tax Talks
Governments should make a high-level commitment to address corporate tax reform within the United Nations' framework convention on international tax cooperation, an intergovernmental group of Middle Eastern and North African countries said Wednesday.
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May 01, 2024
Think Tank Says 'Distortive' DSTs Not The Right Way Forward
As jurisdictions around the world continue to struggle with how to adequately tax the increasingly digital economy, they should look to expand their consumption taxes, not enact digital services taxes, the Tax Foundation said.
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May 01, 2024
Liberty Global Defends $109M Tax Refund Bid In 10th Circ.
Telecommunications giant Liberty Global urged the Tenth Circuit to revive the company's $109 million tax refund bid, arguing a lower court rejected the claim by wrongly disregarding intercompany transactions that are permitted under legislation involving the repatriation of foreign profits.
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May 01, 2024
UN Must Improve Corp. Tax Rules, Platforms, Some Gov'ts Say
Governments must commit to improving existing corporate tax rules and platforms created at the OECD within the terms of reference for a United Nations framework convention on global tax cooperation, two tax officials who participated in drafting those rules said Wednesday.
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May 01, 2024
HMRC Simplifies Late Filing Penalties For Digital Filers
U.K. taxpayers voluntarily filing their personal income tax returns using a program intended to modernize the country's tax system will receive more leniency and access to a simpler penalty structure in cases of late filing, HM Revenue & Customs said.
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May 01, 2024
Hong Kong Proposes Amended Automatic Info Exchange List
Hong Kong is considering adjusting the list of countries it automatically exchanges financial information with by subtracting nine jurisdictions and adding 11, which the country's tax authority said is in line with recommendations from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
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May 01, 2024
Swiss Sends Amendment To Serbian Tax Treaty To Parliament
Switzerland's executive body, the Federal Council, sent to the country's parliament Wednesday an amendment for the country's double-taxation treaty with Serbia that would bring it in line with the OECD's base erosion and profit shifting standards, the council said.
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April 30, 2024
India, Belgium, Others Support UN Taking On Wealth Taxation
Governments should make a high-level commitment to reach agreement on the taxation of wealthy individuals within the United Nations framework convention on international tax cooperation, representatives of India, Belgium, Austria, Nigeria and Kenya said Tuesday.
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April 30, 2024
Yellen Says US Pushing To Protect R&D Credit Under Pillar 2
U.S. Treasury Department negotiators are continuing to advocate for more favorable treatment of the country's research and development tax credit under the Pillar Two global minimum tax rules, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday.
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April 30, 2024
German Banker Gets 3 Years For €93M Cum-Ex Tax Evasion
A German court on Tuesday sentenced a former bank board member to three years and two months in prison for his part in a €93.4 million ($100 million) so-called cum-ex dividend tax fraud.
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April 30, 2024
HMRC Proposes Special Economic Zone Tax Relief Extensions
HM Revenue & Customs proposed Tuesday to extend the time to claim tax relief measures available in special economic zones in the U.K. to 2031 in England and to 2034 in other parts of the country.
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April 30, 2024
The Tax Angle: TCJA Teams, Dear Colleague Letters
From a look at House GOP efforts to prepare for next year's expiration of their 2017 tax overhaul to ongoing attempts by lawmakers to draw attention and support for their own tax legislation, here's a peek into a reporter's notebook on a few of the week's developing tax stories.
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April 30, 2024
Global Climate Tax Could Fund Disaster Aid, Report Says
If OECD countries adopted a tax on the extraction of fossil fuels proposed by over 100 climate organizations, $900 billion could be generated cumulatively by 2030, a majority of which would be earmarked for those hit by climate disasters, some of those groups reported.
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April 30, 2024
EU Tax System Needs To Aid Climate Policy, Accountants Say
European Union lawmakers should design a tax system in their next five-year legislative term that supports the green transition and long-term employment, a European lobby for accountants said in a document posted Tuesday.
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April 29, 2024
Court Can Make Widow Pull $2.5M From Swiss Bank, US Says
A Colorado federal court can force a widow to send $2.5 million from a Swiss bank to the U.S. to repay her late husband's penalties and interest for failing to report his foreign accounts, the U.S. told the court.
Expert Analysis
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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.
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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.