Turkey Studies New Taxes Worth $7 Billion That Target Corporates
Turkish lawmakers have drafted new tax proposals aimed mostly at companies, seeking to repair a budget buffeted by last year’s earthquakes, in what would be the biggest overhaul in a generation.
G-7 Leaders Reaffirm Support for Finalizing Global Tax Agreement
In a communique at their summit in Italy, the G-7 leaders said they hope the treaty will be open for signature by the end of June, as OECD officials have said. The G-7 leaders also called for further progress on the implementation of the OECD’s global minimum tax.
Keir Starmer sets out plans to raise £8.6bn in tax at Labour manifesto launch
Sir Keir Starmer, UK opposition party leader, set out plans to raise £8.6bn in tax in the Labour manifesto on Thursday as he promised to “relight the fires” of economic growth and bring “Conservative chaos” to an end.
Saudis May Ease Tax Rules to Boost Appeal of Bonds to Foreigners
Saudi Arabia laid out a series of steps it plans to take to boost its debt capital market, including a possible easing in taxes it hopes will make local corporate bonds more appealing to foreign investors.
Private equity firms have amassed $1tn in ‘carry’ fees as taxation debate mounts
According to new research from Oxford university, the world’s largest private capital firms have avoided income taxes on more than $1tn in incentive fees since 2000 by structuring the payments in a way that subjected them to a much lower levy.
Trudeau’s Rival Opposes Capital Gains Hike, Promises Tax Cut
Canadian Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he would vote against the government’s proposal to raise the capital gains tax inclusion rate, ending weeks of speculation about where he would land on the issue.
Brazil’s Tax Change to Shift Soybean Demand to US, Amius Says
A surprising tax change in agriculture powerhouse Brazil has the potential to make soy grown in the world’s largest bean exporter less competitive with supplies from the US, according to a report from risk management firm Amius Ltd.
EU’s Carbon Border Levy Risks Backfiring on Industry, Study Says
The European Union law ,meant to protect local industry from foreign undercutting in the transition to a greener economy, may do more harm than good by hindering the competitiveness of the EU industry and failing to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by the intended amount.
Companies Ponder Their Future in Australia After Tax Crackdown
Business and trade groups that represent US-based multinationals with big Australian businesses are hearing concerns from members following the Australian Tax Office’s tough stance against multinationals they view as avoiding its taxes.
Biden and Trump share a faith in import tariffs, despite inflation risks
Biden’s tariffs on $18 billion in Chinese electric vehicles, batteries and computer chips, announced last month, are likely too small to lift the economy’s overall price level, economists said. But Trump’s plan for 60 percent tariffs on all $427 billion in goods that China ships to the United States each year would almost certainly reshape trade in ways that consumers would notice.
Latin American Tax Info Exchange Brought $2.3 Billion in Revenue
Exchanges of information between tax authorities in Latin America brought in an additional 2.1 billion euros ($2.3 billion) in revenue over the last five years, and other transparency measures have allowed Latin American countries to identify at least 27.8 billion euros in additional revenue since 2009.
Australia’s Budget Puts Many Tax Issues on Multinationals’ Radar
The Australian Budget released earlier this month had measures for multinational enterprises that ranged from barely a surprise to some game-changers from a tax administration perspective on transactions.
Australian Budget Threatens Higher Foreign Investment Costs
The 2024-2025 Australian federal budget released this month continues to balance inflationary pressures with cost-of-living concerns. In this environment, specific measures on royalty tax avoidance and foreign resident capital gains tax target multinationals and foreign investors in Australia.
UN Set to Work Out Details of Tax Treaty Amid Deep Divisions
A special committee of countries charged with creating draft terms for a global tax treaty on tax cooperation will start hashing out key details of the proposals’ shape and contents in the coming weeks, including how countries will eventually make decisions and what priority issues it will pursue.
Global Minimum Tax Incentive Rules Threaten US R&D Investment
Unfavorable treatment of the highly lucrative US R&D credit under the global minimum tax is threatening to expose American companies to higher taxes and prompting some to rethink new investments in the US.
Yellen Says US Isn’t Ready to Sign Pending Global Tax Agreement
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the US won’t sign an agreement to finalize a still-pending global tax deal until India and China agree to key unresolved issues. Yellen told reports, “India, in particular, has been a holdout and China has not really engaged very much in these negotiations at all.”
Nations Can Fight, But There’s No Flight From Global Minimum Tax
While more than 140 countries have signed on to the global minimum tax agreement known as Pillar Two, these efforts don’t always have the backing of domestic legislative bodies, some of which have done little to adopt laws that would make Pillar Two effective.
Aligning GILTI With Pillar Two Is a Task the US Shouldn’t Delay
One of the biggest questions about the global minimum tax agreement known as Pillar Two has been how different countries would implement it locally. In the US, Congress must consider the future of the domestic minimum tax on which Pillar Two is based—the Global Intangible Low Taxed Income regime, commonly known as GILTI—before the transition period to adopt the 15% tax ends in 2026.
Divisions Persist Over Global Tax Deal’s Transfer Pricing Rules
Agreement on a few key issues under Amount B of the global tax rules has been elusive so far—such as which countries’ choice to use Amount B would be respected under the rules, which transfer pricing transactions would fall in scope, and whether the simplified rules should be optional or mandatory.
EU Warns Spain, Other Countries On Tax Law Infringements
The European Commission referred Spain to the EU Court of Justice Thursday for breaching rules on taxation in company mergers. The commission also said Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania were infringing EU law by not sharing with other EU tax administrations data on earnings from trading via online platforms.
EU Warns Countries On Delay in Implementing Global Tax
The European Commission is threatening to refer six countries—Poland, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, Latvia and Lithuania—to the top European court unless they provide details of their implementation of the global minimum tax within two months.
Global Minimum Tax Sets up New Hurdles for Companies
The global minimum tax is turning out to be a huge compliance hurdle for many multinationals, especially those with subsidiaries spread out in hundreds of cities across the globe. In order to pay their global minimum tax bill in a timely manner, large companies need to build new systems to synthesize thousands of pieces of new data and track the differences between countries’ local laws applying the levy.
Global Tax Disputes Loom Large Without Strong Resolution Tool
The design of the global minimum tax is making large multinational companies vulnerable to disputes with countries all over the world—and halfway into 2024, there’s no tool to resolve them due to the differences in adoption of the global tax rules across jurisdictions.
US Companies Move Behind American Shield to Delay Global Tax
US multinational companies are engaging in what essentially amounts to a political game of chicken, dissolving their overseas holding companies and reshoring ownership of their subsidiaries to delay paying the new 15% global minimum tax—perhaps indefinitely.
Australia Seeks New Penalty on Companies Avoiding Royalty Taxes
Australia plans to introduce a new tax penalty for big companies that try to avoid taxes on royalties in its latest move to crack down on multinationals that it says aren’t paying their fair share.
EU Ministers Agree on Withholding Tax Rule, Stumble on VAT
European Union finance ministers agreed in principle to a law intended to speed up cross-border withholding tax refund procedures and that will require EU countries to replace current tax refund systems for cross-border dividend and interest payments with improved, simpler procedures.
Biden administration to increase tariffs on Chinese electric cars to 100 percent
The Biden administration will increase tariffs from 25 percent to 100 percent on Chinese EV imports to offset Chinese export practices, which they argued “favor Chinese automakers at the expense of U.S. and other foreign automakers and autoworkers and are leading to a massive surge of unfairly underpriced Chinese vehicles into foreign markets.”
N Ireland should cut corporate tax to boost growth, says business lobby
Northern Ireland should slash its corporate tax rate from 25% in line with the Republic of Ireland’s 12.5% rate for small firms and 15% for large companies, to drive growth in the cash-strapped region.
China Mulls Dividend Tax Waiver on Hong Kong Stocks Connect
Regulators including the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the State Taxation Administration are reviewing a plan submitted by Hong Kong to waive the 20% tax on dividends from Hong Kong stocks bought via Stock Connect.
Norway Risks Outflow of Startups Dismayed by Harsher Exit Tax
The Norwegian government in March announced its latest step to close tax loopholes for wealthy expatriates by setting a deadline for the payment of an exit tax on unrealized changes in the value of their assets, or their transfer. That plan follows increases in wealth and dividend taxes since 2022 that have prompted dozens of the country’s richest to relocate, mainly to Switzerland.
EU Examining Ways to Improve Tax Information Exchange Process
The European Commission is evaluating the effectiveness of reporting rules that govern collection of information relevant for cross-border taxation and the exchange of that information between EU tax authorities.
Groups Seek Disclosure Protection for Australian Tax Reporting
Financial services industry groups are calling on the Australian government to be more discerning with the tax information from funds that is made public following it’s country-by-country proposal released in February.
Governments slap taxes on EVs as $110bn fuel duty shortfall looms
Global policymakers, including the UK, New Zealand, Israel and US states, are imposing new taxes on electric vehicles as the shift away from combustion engines threatens to leave a $110bn hole in government revenues owing to a drop in receipts from fuel duties.
EU Calls on UN to Avoid Duplicating Global Tax Discussions
A future United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation should help countries reform their domestic tax systems and avoid duplicating work on international tax reform, the European Union said ahead of UN tax discussions in New York.
UN Committee Begins Drafting Global Tax-Cooperation Plan
The committee is considering topics such as how the UN framework will approach taxing multinational companies and wealthy individuals, digital taxation, taxation of cross-border transactions, combating tax-related illicit financial flows, and using tax to address environmental challenges.
Treasury, Business Push Back on Australia Software-Tax Ruling
The US Treasury Department and business groups are at odds with Australia over its taxation of software — and that could prompt higher taxes, higher prices, and maybe even a rethink by US companies over how they’ll do business there.