2018

Companies in Brazil have begun to post victories as they challenge a controversial tie-breaking procedure used by the revenue service's appeals courts. In February and March, the Brazilian units of Delta Airlines and American Airlines blocked rulings they had lost because of a rule that permits the heads of the tax courts to vote twice to break ties.

Opposition lawmakers March 29 applied renewed pressure on the Dutch government to publicly release anonymous versions of individualized tax deals issued to resident companies. Lawmakers made the statements during a plenary debate on tax avoidance duringwhich lawmakers repeatedly pressed the country's finance secretary to do more to tackle tax avoidance by companies and curb profit shifting through the Netherlands.

The Australian opposition Labor Party has initiated a Senate inquiry into business support for the government's plan to reduce the corporate tax rate to 25 percent from 30 percent, even after the government stalled a vote on it. The inquirywill target a commitment given March 21 to the Senate by the Business Council of Australia and 10 of its members, including some of Australia's largest companies.

In comments to the TPMinds International Conference in late March, Deputy Commissioner Mark Konza outlined the Australia Taxation Office's priorities in the area of international tax enforcement,with an especial focus to be placed on the energy and resources sector and pharmaceutical industry.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers, conservative groups and online businesses are urging the Supreme Court to keep in place limits on states' ability to require online retailers to collect their sales taxes.

Several major labor groups are pressing corporations over how they expect to benefit from the GOP tax law and use their savings as the unions prepare to bargain new contracts forworkers.

Financial executives in the U.S., Canada and Mexico are reporting increased confidence about the economy and their companies' prospects following passage of the GOP tax law.

European Union antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager has become the de facto global regulator for U.S. companies such as Google and Apple. Under herwatch, the EU fined Google, ordered Apple to repay ÔøΩ13 billion (about $16 billion) in alleged unpaid taxes to Ireland, and this year hit Qualcomm Inc.with a nearly ÔøΩ1 billion fine for payments it made to Apple that the EU saidwere illegal.

The OECD Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes has rated Estonia, France, Monaco, and New Zealand as compliant; Bahamas, Belgium, and Hungary as largely compliant; and Ghana as partially compliant in new peer review reports on implementation of international tax transparency standards.

The South Korean tax authoritywill be more easily able to flag companies for audits once large firms begin publishing their governance structure, practitioners told Bloomberg Tax. Starting in 2019, South Korea's Financial Services Commissionwill require publicly traded companieswith assets exceeding 2 trillionwon ($1.8 billion) to publicize their ownership structure in a bid to improve corporate transparency for stakeholders, the financial authority said in a March 21statement.

The OECD began reviewing the new U.S. tax law April 4 andwill scrutinize it "diligently and expeditiously," according to a letter obtained by Bloomberg Tax.

A renewable energy company based in Florida is selling Canadian assets inwhat some consider aworrying sign of increasing capital reallocation from Canada to the United States as a result of U.S. tax reform.

Luxembourg's corporate tax base may suffer from the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and EU anti-tax-avoidance directives because of the country's heavy reliance on foreign investment, according to an IMF report.

The Alliance for Competitive Taxation has asked Treasury to consider numerous issues the group has identifiedwhen developing guidance on the base erosion and antiabuse tax under section 59A.

Taxation is the lifeblood of a modern liberal democracy. It is the one policy areawithoutwhich nearly all of the other functions and aspects of the statewould not be possible. Yet in the face of this reality, many Americans continue to believe that they can receive the goods and services provided by a modern regulatory, administrative, social-welfare statewith low taxes and limited government. Many politicians and everyday Americans have even perpetuated the myth that they are "overtaxed" compared to the citizens of other advanced, industrialized nations.

McCormick & Co. Inc.will increase capital expenditures by 10% this year among other benefits linked to the recent U.S. tax overhaul, said Chief Financial Officer Michael Smith. "We like the tax act overall," he said. "We have a lot of business overseas and for us to be competitive it's good to have the tax rate come down."

Amazon.com Inc. faces a renewed legal challenge from the IRS,which filed a brief March 30 appealing its 2017 loss in U.S. Tax Court to the tech giant. Amazon had successfully challenged the IRS's adjustment of $2.2 billion in income related to its business in Luxembourg, resulting in a tax bill of $234 million. In its appeal, the IRS pointed to the 2017 tax act and its legislative history as evidence that Congress intended the law to match the IRS's position.

The Netherlands iswilling to publish anonymized versions of tax deals issued to resident companiesÔøΩif it has to, a finance official said. An independent committee is currently investigating the country's tax ruling practice, and may recommend the release of the deals. In that case, "we'll simply start doing this," State Secretary for Finance Menno Snel said during a March 30 parliamentary debate.

The French governmentwants to add the stick to its carrot-and-stick plan to combat tax fraud, trying to ease late-filing penalties for "honest" companies and get toughwith those that aren't.

The Australian Treasury has issued a memorandum that explains the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2018,whichwould extend the purview of the multinational antiavoidance law to cover additional corporate structures and entities.

The European Commission is holding out hope that the newest version of its long-embattled common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB)will become law. But so far it seems to be following the same trajectory as its doomed 2011 predecessor: strong backing in the European Parliament before disintegrating in the EU Council.

The IRS has released (Announcement 2018-8) a report on advance pricing agreements for calendar year 2017 under the advance pricing and mutual agreement program, showing therewere more APAs executed than last year and it took slightly more time to complete them. According to the report, 116 APAswere executed in 2017 comparedwith 86 in 2016; the median completion time for an APA in 2017was 33.8 months comparedwith 32.8 months in 2016; and 101 applicationswere filed in 2017 comparedwith 98 in 2016.

In this article, the authors argue that statutory and effective tax rates are inadequate tools for conducting cross-country tax-attractiveness comparisons. Instead, they advocate for the use of the multivariate Tax Attractiveness Index,which they use to compare the changes in the tax attractiveness of 100 nations over 10 years and also to compare tax attractivenesswith major macroeconomic variables.

America's new tax law is encouraging foreign banks to raise short-term dollar fundingwith commercial paper instead of currency swaps, according to Credit Suisse strategist Zoltan Pozsar. In his view, this explains the recent narrowing in thecross-currency basis. The specific provision, according to Pozsar, is the "base erosion and anti-abuse tax" (BEAT),which is meant to limit multinationals' ability to minimize their US tax liabilities.

Unilateral adoption of transfer pricing regulations may have a negative impact on real investment by multinational corporations (MNCs). This paper uses a quasi-experimental research design, exploiting unique panel data on domestic and multinational companies in 27 countries during 2006-2014, to find that MNC affiliates reduce their investment by over 11 percent following the introduction of transfer pricing regulations. There is no significant reduction in total investment by the MNC group, suggesting that these investments are most likely shifted to affiliates in other countries. The impact of transfer pricing regulations corresponds to an increase in the ``TPR-adjusted'' corporate tax rate by almost one quarter.

Grover Norquist tweeted it, so it must be true: "Tariffs are taxes."with that inspiration,we devote thisweek's column to discussing the respective pros and cons of slapping high taxes on imported steel and aluminum. Spoiler alert: The damage outweighs the gains.we also take a stab at understanding President Trump's apparent fixationwith taxing imports,which manifests itself in his criticism of other countries' border adjustments.

China's newly appointed finance minister said March 25 that Chinawill continue to optimize its tax systemwhile paying close attention to international tax reform.

Unless it is part of a globally coordinated effort, the introduction or tightening of transfer pricing rules by one country may significantly reduce local investment, according to an IMFworking paper.

Richard Collier of Oxford's Centre for Business Taxation considerswhether the arm's length principle is a principle, andwhether it is arm's length, in his blog post "THE ARM's LENGTH PRINCIPLE ("ALP") – IS IT A PRINCIPLE AND IS IT ARM's LENGTH?"and includes citations to relevant publications of the CBT on the topic.

The Norwegian Government has begun a consultation on proposed new reporting requirements for online platforms in the sharing economy.

The proposal,which follows up the publication of recommendations by the Government's sharing economy committee in 2017,would require online platforms enabling the provision of sharing economy services and the rental of property to provide "tax relevant" information about the service provider or landlord to the tax administration.

The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), a grouping of 15 Caribbean territories, says it isworking hard through its Brussels embassy to address EU concerns,which have led to a number of its members being included on a tax blacklist.

The European Commission is to take steps to ensure that EU external development and investment funds cannot be channelled or transited through entities in countries included on the EU's "blacklist" of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions.

The Commission has published guidelineswhich set out the applicable legislation on how EU funds should be treatedwhen it comes to tax avoidance and non-cooperative jurisdictions. The guidelines are intended to ensure that the rules are interpreted and applied consistently.

The Swiss Federal Council has approved tax proposal 17, the package of reforms designed to bring Swiss tax rules more closely into linewith international standards.

On March 21, the Council adopted the dispatch on TP17. It said that the packagewill make a decisive contribution to Switzerland's competitiveness, and that itwishes to quickly improve matters for domestic and foreign companies.

The Swiss Government haswarned against the introduction of short-term measures targeted at tackling the problems of taxing the digital economy.

The Government said that it had made clear during thisweek's meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors that the digital economy should be appropriately taxed. However, the Government recommended that the existing tax rules and possible options for reform should be discussed in the OECD. It stressed that in order to guarantee legal certainty, avoid over- and double taxation, and to combat high administrative burdens, governments should avoid the introduction of short-term measures.

The OECD plans to achieve an international consensus by 2020 on taxing the digital economy, but this ambitious timeline is unrealistic, say experts. The OECD's David Bradbury defends the organisation's approach in an exclusive conversationwith International Tax Review.

German media group Bertelsmann haswarned that European Commission plans to impose a digital tax on internet companies such as Google, Apple and Facebook could hit European businesses harder than the US technology groups.

The U.S. is firmly opposed to any proposals that single out digital companies for taxation, the Treasury Department's international tax counsel said. Short-term or interim proposals, such as those put forward by the European Union, create the risk of double taxation, and could discourage innovation and harmworkers and consumers, said Treasury's Douglas Poms.

A new German law closing tax loopholes for royalty payments on patent licenses and other potentially harmful practices could spur a backlash from poorer EU nations already resistant to bloc harmonization measures, attorneys told Bloomberg Tax.

Foreign companieswith Indian subsidiaries aren't required to file country-by-country reports in India by March 31, according to a government notification released days ahead of the anticipated deadline. The March 31 deadline for country-by-country reporting now only applies to India-headquartered multinationals.

Beijing has announced taxwaivers for foreign investors in the country's new crude oil futures contracts due to launch March 26, bringing them in linewith international practices. Similar taxwaivers are expected for Chinese commodities futures launches likely to begin in the coming months.

European Union officials insist that most EU member nations agree large internet companies pay an unacceptably low amount of tax and U.S. President Donald Trumpwill block any solution from the OECD to resolve the issue.

The European Union may add the U.S. to its blacklist of tax havens if an OECD panel concludes its new tax law breaks bloc rules. Earlier this month the EU asked the OECD Forum for Harmful Taxation to conduct a "fast-track" review of the tax changes.

The Spring Statement confirmed the U.K. government's commitment to introducing an extension of corporation tax for digital businesses. The statement included an updated version of the consultative document on the taxation of digital companies. The proposed form of the tax is, however, far from clear as are the means bywhich the technical complexities in framing a tax on the value created by digital business tax can realistically be overcome. The proposed solution to this difficulty in the short-term is to propose a temporary turnover based tax. This proposal has already been criticized.

Investors are scratching their heads aboutwhy a key measure of distress in financial markets is at its highest level since the financial crisis in 2009, even though there isn't any panic about banks' health. The answer may be the U.S. tax bill, and how it has penalized U.S. branches of foreign lenders for borrowing cash from their headquarters.

A new tax aimed at overseas income earned by U.S. technology and pharmaceutical firms is hitting unexpected places, includingKansas City Southern,a U.S. railroad company. The new minimum tax on foreign earningswill cost Kansas City Southern $25 million a year, according to the company,whichwarns the measure also encourages it to borrow money outside the U.S.

Evidence of the impact of tax incentives in developing countries is scarce, and more analysis is needed for better policymaking, according to researchers at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

New York budget negotiators could decidewithin the nextweekwhether the state and New York City business tax lawswill decouple from specific foreign-source income provisions of the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

In the BEPS action plan, the OECD emphasized that the projectwas focused on multinationals' tax avoidance, and "not directly aimed at changing the existing international standards on the allocation of taxing rights on cross-border income." But that artificially narrow focus on tax avoidance,which ignored larger changes in the conduct of global business that facilitated multinationals' using rules to achieve lower tax rates, meant the project's recommendations addressed only the most superficial problems facing an international tax regime thatwas developed early in the last century.

EU governmentswant EU-wide equalization taxes, like the ones that the Italian and Hungarian governments have enacted. The OECD doesn'twant them to have these taxes ÔøΩ and if they do have them, they should be temporary and narrowly targeted. The OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration and the European Commission are battlingwith dueling reports on the merits of an equalization tax for Europe and expansion of the permanent establishment standard beyond physical presence. The OECD is losing those battles but prevailed in skirmishes over the details.