Int'l Tax News

Posted on

U.S. May Give Multinationals Option to Report Data Early

by Alison Bennett
U.S. companies may be able to volunteer information on their revenue, profits and earnings during a six-month reporting gap under the OECD's new standard for country-by-country reporting, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

BEPS Report on Transfer Pricing 'Could Have Been Worse'

Critics of the risk reallocation principles adopted in the OECD's final transfer pricing report should appreciate that the most controversial parts of prior discussion draftswere removed, said Andrew Hickman, head of the transfer pricing unit at the OECD's Centre for Tax Policy and Administration.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

India releases draft rules on computation of income attributable to indirect transfer of assets

  • By PwC
by PwC
The Indian Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the highest administrative body for income tax in India, has issued draft rules (F No 142/26/2015-TPL dated May 23, 2016) for determining the fair market value (FMV) of both tangible and intangible assets aswell as the income attributable to assets in Indiawith respect to the taxation of indirect transfer of assets under Section 9(1)(i) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (the Act) aswell as related reporting and document maintenance requirements.
To read more go here

Posted on

Fixed Ratio Rule Could Make U.S. Debt-Equity Regs Unnecessary

If the U.S.were to adopt a fixed ratio interest deductibility rule, the proposed section 385 regulations (REG-108060-15 2016 TNT 65-11: IRS Proposed Regulations) might no longer be necessary, said Jason Yen, attorney-adviser, Treasury Office of International Tax Counsel.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

U.S. Waiting for OECD's Profit Attribution Rules

Realistically, it is unlikely that the United Stateswould sign the permanent establishment provision of the OECD's multilateral instrument (MLI).

The U.S. is participating in the development of the OECD's multilateral instrument (MLI) to implement the treaty-related measures of the base erosion and profit-shifting project, but iswaiting to see the finished product before decidingwhether to sign the MLI, said Quyen Huynh, Treasury associate international tax counsel.

To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

U.S. Tax Review (1) (3)

by James P. Fuller
James Fuller discusses recently proposed U.S. regulations addressing inversions and domestic disregarded entities.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

News Analysis: How BEPS Brought on the State Aid Investigations

by Mindy Herzfeld
Mindy Herzfeld reviews the European Commission's latest explanation for its state aid investigations into tax rulings granted to multinationals and discusseswhy there are solid grounds to support U.S. claims of discrimination against U.S. businesses.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

Vestager: EU Must Take Action Against Unrealistic Tax Deals

by Stephanie Bodoni
European Union Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager justified probes into favorable tax deals given to Apple, Amazon and others, saying regulators have to actwhen countries hand out "unrealistic" pacts.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

Short Timeline for Earnings-Stripping Rules Is a Concern

by Allyson Versprille
Tax practitioners are questioningwhether the time frame the IRS and Treasury Department have laid out to answer and analyze comments on proposed earnings-stripping regulationswill be long enough for them to fully consider all taxpayer concerns.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

Claiming the Indirect Credit for Foreign Taxes of a PFIC

by Kimberly S. Blanchard
Kimberly S. Blanchard ofweil, Gotshal & Mangeswrites that the passive foreign investment company rules often operate at oddswith the rest of the tax code, highlighting issues that arise on the taxation of "excess distributions."
For the BNA Insight, gohere. (subscription required)

Posted on

Treasury Could Modify E&P Exception to Debt-Equity Rules

by Alison Bennett
The government is taking another look at the exception for earnings and profits under controversial earnings-stripping rules, Treasury Deputy International Tax Counsel Douglas Poms said.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

International Tax News Edition 40 June 2016

  • By PwC
by PWC
International Tax News is designed to help multinational organisations keep upwith the constant flow of international tax developmentsworldwide. Among the topics featured in this month's edition are:
  • Changes to Brazil's capital gains tax rates
  • The US Treasury's proposed Section 385 regulations on related party financing
  • The French Supreme Court's final decision on remuneration of cash funding from a branch to its head office
  • The UK Court of Appeal upholds High Court decision regarding taxation of foreign portfolio dividends
To read more go here

Posted on

The key to stopping inversions is tax reform, not political rhetoric

Politicians continue to rail against corporate inversions at every opportunity. Presidential candidates repeatedly have called for a government crackdown to prevent businesses from moving overseas. Unfortunately, most of their populist rhetoric misses the mark.

To read more go here

Posted on

Proposed Section 385 Regulations and S Corporations: Borrower Beware!

by Horacio Sobol & Sam Starr
PwC's Horacio Sobol and Sam Starr of Bloomberg BNA look at the effects proposed tax code Section 385 regulations (REG-135734-15) could have on S corporations if they are finalized. The authorswrite that "if S corporation owners and practitioners aren't careful, they may find S corporation status has terminated due to debt being recharacterized into a second class of stock."
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

The Increasing Relevance of Transfer Pricing in M&A

by Patrick Tijhuis and Marcel van den Heuvel
The authors address the transformation of tax laws and regulations currently taking place under the OECD/G-20 initiative to combat tax avoidance, base erosion and profit shifting, and how it impacts the capital structure, strategic goals and priorities of an M&A transaction.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

Section 367 Adrift: Old Statute, New Applications, Part 2

by Peter M. Daub

The first partof this two-part report showed that, beginningwith its original enactment in 1932 and through the 1980s,when the statute effectively took its current form, Congress, the courts, and the IRS understood section 367 to apply onlywhen the unmodified application of a subchapter C provision specified in section 367 to a cross-border or foreign-to-foreign transactionwould thwart a basic tax policy or provision other than one reflected in a specified provision.This part of the report shows how the IRS has began to pursue other goals such as subjecting to U.S. income tax funds or other property transferred from a foreign subsidiary to its U.S. parent, even if the property does not represent income or gain in any conventional sense, and expanding the reach of U.S. taxing jurisdiction over income earned by foreign subsidiaries that has not been repatriated.

To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

EU Competition Arm to Stick to OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines

by Stephanie Soong Johnston
Despite concerns that the European Commissionwants to reinvent the OECD's transfer pricing guidelines, EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager recently reassured the OECD that the EUwill continue to follow the guidelines.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

In Transfer Pricing, Control' Defined By Power, Not Ownership

Bloomberg
by Doloresw. Gregory
The definition of "control" in federal transfer pricing regulations doesn't turn on ownership, but onwhether any one individual or party can "move or influence" a related entity, the IRS said in recent internal guidance.
In training materials for IRS examinersÔøΩISI/9422.09_02(2013)ÔøΩthe agency set out the fundamental requirements of tax code Section 482.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

Proposal for a New Institutional Framework for Mandatory Dispute Resolution

by Jeffrey Owens, Arno E. Gildemeister, and Laura Turcan
Jeffrey Owens, Arno E. Gildemeister, and Laura Turcan propose a new provision based on article 25 (alternative B) of the U.N. model double taxation convention that contains several amendments and additions, such as proposed alternative dispute resolution and mandatory dispute settlement clauses.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

Video: Exclusive interview with Pascal Saint-Amans (1)

Pascal Saint-Amans, director of the Centre for Tax Policy and Administration at the OECD, sat downwith International Tax Review reporter Amelia Schwanke to discuss the most prominent topics in tax because although "tax isn't fun, it's absolutely fundamental if youwant to have services to the population".

To read more go here

Posted on

EU Financial-Transaction Tax Push May Soon Grind to a Halt

The European Union's plan to implement a financial-transaction tax may be called off soon if more countries back out, Austrian Finance Minister Hans Joerg Schelling said.

To read more go here

Posted on

Options for Reforming America's Tax Code

  • By Tax Foundation

by Tax Foundation

There is awidespread consensus among Americans across the political spectrum that the U.S. tax system is overly complex, inefficient, uncompetitive, and due for an overhaul. As a result, many U.S. policymakers have expressed a desire for comprehensive tax reform in the near future.

To assist lawmakers in assembling tax reform bills over the coming months, and to help the American public in understanding the tax changes being proposed,we've assembled this book: a collection of 86 commonly proposed changed to the U.S. tax code that might be part of a future tax reform bill.

To read more go here

Posted on

New book explains tradeoffs of tax proposals to lawmakers

by Naomi Jagoda

The Tax Foundation released a book on Monday to help explain to lawmakers the tradeoffs involved in various tax-reform ideas.

The book from the free-market group analyzes 86 commonly proposed changes to the tax code and estimates their effects on revenue, the economy, jobs and the distribution of the tax burden across income groups.

To read more go here

Posted on

G-20 Finance Ministers to Focus on Tax Certainty

by Kevin A. Bell
The next meeting of the Group of Twenty finance ministersÔøΩon July 23 and 24 in Chengdu, ChinaÔøΩwill focus onwhat can be done to increase tax certainty in order to foster inclusive growth among theworld's economies, an OECD official said.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

EU Competition Arm to Stick to OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines (1)

by Stephanie Soong Johnston
Despite concerns that the European Commissionwants to reinvent the OECD's transfer pricing guidelines, EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager recently reassured the OECD that the EUwill continue to follow the guidelines.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

Agreement on EU Financial Transaction Tax Elusive as Deadline Nears

by Amanda Athanasiou
As proponents of an enhanced cooperation agreement on a financial transaction tax face a June 30 deadline, disagreement continues to plague central components of the plan, according to a June 3 statement by the European Council.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

The Perfect Tax Storm! Full Disclosure of All Topics to All Stakeholders in Real Time

by Steef Huibregtse, Maria Grigoryeva and Margie van der Valk
Recommendations on disclosing tax arrangementswere published as part of the final reports on all 15 base erosion and profit shifting actions in the context of the G-20/OECD BEPS initiative. TPA Global's Steef Huibregtse, Maria Grigoryeva and Margie van der Valk examine OECD and EU activity in this field and consider how multinational enterpriseswill be forced to disclose tax arrangements to multiple stakeholders in real time.
To read more of the Bloomberg story, go here Subscription Required

Posted on

OECD Developing Binding MAP Provision for Multilateral Instrument

by Alexander Lewis
An OECD discussion draft raises questions regarding the development of a mandatory binding mutual agreement procedure (MAP) provision that could be included in the multilateral instrument to implement treaty-related base erosion and profit-shifting measures.
For the TNT story, go here. (subscription required)

Posted on

Why McDonalds and Google are in trouble in Europe

by Renea Merle

Across Europe, just how much - or little - U.S. multinational firms are paying in taxes is coming under intense scrutiny.

To read more of thewashington Post story, go here

Posted on

G-7 leaders pledge to steadily adopt BEPS international tax measures

  • By MNE Tax
by Multinational Tax & Transfer Pricing News
Leaders of the G-7 nations of the US, UK, Canada, France, Japan, Germany, and Italy, following their meeting in Ise-Shima, Japan, vowed to "lead by example" by implementing the OECD/G20 base erosion profit shifting (BEPS) package in a "steady, consistent, and concerted manner."
To read more of the MNE Tax story, go here

Posted on

OECD: New Cop on the Block

by Cina Corner
The new global financial sheriff these days is not a bank president or the CEO of a security company. Appearing more and more in the headlines, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) seems to be all over the place, issuingwarnings of impending economic doom and heading up major campaigns on the tax front.
To read more of the Daily Forex story, go here

Posted on

The Puzzling Policy of Foreign Tax Credits

by Alan Cole
This month, the Australia Institute released a report that argues persuasively that a substantial portion of Australia's corporate income tax cutswill simply end up resulting in increased revenue for the U.S. Treasury.
To read more go here

Posted on

China postpones cross-border sales tax over fears of e-commerce slowdown

by Qian Chen (CNBC)
China's tax authorities have rolled back on their new cross-border sales tax program in an attempt to avoid a pile of problems.
To read more go here

Posted on

ICC urges consideration of broader trade implications of tax policies in response to BEPS recommendations

by Dawn Chardonnal (International Chambers of Commerce)
The International Chamber of Commerce recognizes the efforts of an increasing number of tax authorities to revise their tax policies in response to the international guidelines outlined in the G20 mandated OECD BEPS project. ICC urges national governments to seriously consider the broader implications of their proposed measures and strongly recommends an alignmentwith existing guidelines thatwould facilitate greater consistency internationally and incentivise cross-border trade, investment and economic growth.
To read more go here

Posted on

Taxing Multinational Enterprises as Unitary Entities

Tax Analysts

by Sol Picciotto
Sol Picciotto explores the international tax questions raised by treating multinational enterprises as single or unitary entities.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

Changing Tides: Wading Through the BEPS Implementation Waters

Tax Analysts

by Stephanie Soong Johnston
At the May 19-20 IFA Mauritius chapter's 10th annual Asia/Africa Conference 2016 in Balaclava, Mauritius, hundreds of practitioners, government officials, academics, and civil society representatives gathered to discuss the BEPS project implementation phase and its effects on African and Asian countries, financial centers, and tax planning.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

News Analysis: Debt-Equity Regs -- Treasury's Options

Tax Analysts

Mindy Herzfeld previews the battle that the U.S. governmentwill face in finalizing its recently proposed section 385 regulations and outlines some options Treasurywill have in that process.
For the TNI article, gohere. (Subscription required)

Posted on

Section 367 Adrift: Old Statute, New Applications

Peter M. Daub is a partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. In this report,which is the first of two parts, Daub traces the development of section 367 policy and addresses how in recent antiabuse guidance the IRS has altered the application of section 367 to cross-border and foreign-to-foreign transactions.

To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

News Analysis: The Path to Fragmented Tax Reform

by Marie Sapire (Tax Notes)
The Tax Reform Act of 2014, introduced by former Houseways and Means Committee Chair Dave Camp,was misnamed -- at least regarding the year. A more accurate titlewould have been "A Compendium of Tax Reform Acts for 2015 and Beyond," because that iswhen some of its provisionswill come to fruition.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

BRT Letter to Congress on Treasury Department's Proposed Debt/Equity Regulations

by Kevin Brady (Business Roundtable)
The Business Roundtable has strong concerns about the potential business disruption, significant breadth of impact, and adverse consequences caused by the proposed Section 385 regulations.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

The New U.S. Model Treaty is OUt

Bloomberg

by James J Tobin
James J. Tobin of Ernst & Young looks at changes included in the new U.S. Model Treaty.while the author applauds modifications to the mutual agreement procedure to require mandatory binding arbitration, he questions denials of treaty benefitswhere a "special tax regime" is in play and for payments made by expatriated entities, aswell as changes tightening the limitation on benefits.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

Lawmakers Provide Details on Tax Reform Blueprint

by Kat Lucero (Tax Notes)
An upcoming House tax reform blueprintwill be a future guide for international, business, and individual reform and may contain some tax proposals thatwere considered during a few rounds of member day hearings hosted by theways and Means Committee, according to committee memberswho spoke to Tax Analysts May 26.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

Earnings-Stripping Rules Threaten the Money Business: Banks

Bloomberg

by Alison Bennett
Controversial earnings stripping rules could deal a harsh and unintended blow to the financial industry.
Bankswith thousands of transactions crossing the globe daily say the rules could derail some of the most routine movements of cash in an industrywhose function is to move money around theworld.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

Tax-Writers Press on with Tax Reform Proposals; Treasury to HaveIntense Comment Period on Section 385 Regulations - See more at: http://www.natlawreview.com/article/tax-writers-press-tax-reform-pro

by Brandon C Roman& Stephanie L. Shaker (The National Law Review)
In light of intense scrutiny and pushback from industry, Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary Bob Stack acknowledged that Treasury "may have missed things" in its latest rulemaking targeting corporate inversions and the ability of multinational corporations to engage in so-called "earnings-stripping" practices.
For the National Law Review article, gohere.

Posted on

ECOFIN Adopts CbC Reporting, Postpones Vote on Antiavoidance Directive

Tax Analysts

by JP Finet
The EU Economic and Financial Affairs Council on May 25 approved the implementation of country-by-country reporting for multinational companies and extended through 2017 the 15 percent minimum standard VAT rate.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

How the Proposed Section 6038A Regulations

Bloomberg

by John C. Dworkin
John C. Dworkin of John C. Dworkin P.C. looks at how proposed regulations under Section 6038A affect common ownership structures for foreign investment in U.S. real property.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

Debt-Equity Regs Won't Solve Larger U.S. Tax Problems

by Andrew Velarde (Tax Notes)
Against the backdrop of Treasury's proposed related-party debt-equity regs, practitioners and an officialwith the Joint Committee on Taxation on May 25 explored alternatives for addressing U.S. corporate tax shortcomings,with much of the discussion focusing on the need to follow examples set in the rest of theworld.
For the TNT story, gohere. (Subscription required)

Posted on

Inversion Rules Aren't Long-Term Solution: JCT Official

Bloomberg

by Allyson Versprille
Proposed regulations to limit corporate tax inversionswon't provide a lasting solution to the problem, Viva Hammer, legislative counsel for the Joint Committee on Taxation, said.
To read more go here Subscription Required

Posted on

Canada continues moving forward with OECD transparency agenda

  • By PwC

PwC

Canada recently announced two measures alignedwith the OECD base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) project. Effective April 1, 2016, the Canada Revenue Agency began sharing selected Canadian tax rulingswith certain countries in accordancewith BEPS Action 5, and on May 12, Canada signed the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on the Exchange of Country-by-Country Reports.
To read more go here

Posted on

Raise more from corporations: Opposing view

Inverted companies remain headquartered in the United States, retaining access to our infrastructure and educatedworkforcewithout paying U.S. corporate income taxes.

Itwould, of course, be best to craft a comprehensive solution to this problem rather than have Treasury playwhac-A-Molewith insufficient tools.

For the USA today article, gohere.

Member Companies

Back to top