Int'l Tax News

By Carrie Brandon Elliot

Carrie Brandon Elliot reviews how the unintended consequences of hybrid regulations can reflect overreach as applied to notional interest deductions and group relief, and incompleteness as applied to inclusions under the global intangible low-taxed income and subpart F regimes.

A panel of tax experts surveyed by International Tax Review say digital services taxes (DSTs) are distortive and must be temporary - but few thought theywere illegal or discriminatory.

While feedback on the International Compliance Assurance Program (ICAP) has been overwhelmingly positive, unsurprisingly,the first pilot did encounter some teething problems.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday approved four bilateral tax treaties, rejecting an effort by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., to include more privacy protections for Americans in the agreements. The committee approved by voice vote tax treatieswith Spain, Switzerland, Japan and Luxembourg and voted down Paul's proposed amendment to the bilateral treatywith Spain thatwould have raised the standard the U.S. government must meet to request or share taxpayer information under the agreement.

Businesses are getting helpÔøΩbut not everything theywantedÔøΩas the Treasury Department addresses one of the biggest corporate frustrationswith the 2017 tax law. Under a new rule proposed earlier this month, Treasurywould make it easier to escape a minimum U.S. tax thatwas supposed to hit only companieswith low foreign taxes but also ended up affecting those operating in high-tax countries. Once the rule is final, U.S.-based companies could choose to have subsidiarieswith tax rates of at least 18.9% excluded from that minimum tax.

The OECD's Achim Pross says his ultimate aim is to expand the International Compliance Assurance Programme (ICAP), but companies may be disappointed to learn that it could be a relatively slow process.

By Jennifer Mcloughlin

The European Commission fell short in swaying support for its decision that Hungary's progressive advertising tax violated EU state aid rules.

By Emily L. Foster

Congress should contemplate legislation to address policy issues regarding the 2017 tax law's international tax regime, pending the release of tax return data and the OECD's proposal on minimum taxes, according to a congressional staffer.

By Elodie Lamer

France and Germany have proposed a method for the "mutualization" of financial transaction tax revenues thatwould ensure that each of the 10 participating countrieswould get at least ÔøΩ20 million.

By Andrew Goodall

The United Kingdom government has appealed against the European Commission's decision that an exemption from the U.K. controlled foreign company rules for intragroup interest granted a selective advantage and constituted state aid.

By Stephanie Soong Johnston and Teri Sprackland

France's Senate and National Assembly have ironed out compromise legislation for a digital services tax,which includes a provision seeking clarification onwhether the European Commissionwould raise state aid issues.

By Annagabriella Colon

Congress may step in to reevaluate and limit the constitutional authority it has been sharingwith the executive branch regarding tariffs, and Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said he expects bipartisan support for a restriction.

By Elodie Lamer

Both the European Parliament and the EU Council cannot agree internallywhether to further discuss the need for minimum effective taxation.

By Tax Analyst

Treasury has released a draft slide presentation submitted by Procter & Gamble for discussion purposeswith an OECDworking group.

By Tax Analyst

Treasury has released an individual's alternative proposal for the treatment of pre-2018 net operating loss taxpayers, asserting that the current section 59A regulations place otherwise identically situated taxpayers in significantly different economic positions for base erosion antiabuse tax purposes solely through the presence or absence of a net operating loss.

ByTax Analyst

Treasury has released an individual's comments that address issues under proposed foreign derived intangible income and global intangible low-taxed income regulations (REG-104464-18) regarding person and foreign use requirements in some situations and the foreign use exploitation rule.

By Jennifer Mcloughlin

U.S. officials selected the prospective effective date for a proposed high-tax exclusion under the global intangible low-taxed income provision to allow time to test the exception.

By Jennifer Mcloughlin

U.S. officials selected the prospective effective date for a proposed high-tax exclusion under the global intangible low-taxed income provision to allow time to test the exception.

By H.David Rosenbloom

The IRS and Treasury's change of approach in newly proposed regs navigating partnerships under the global intangible low-taxed income provision could result in significantly less income inclusions for some taxpayers.

By H.David Rosenbloom

The proposed regulationswould allow domestic shareholders of a CFC to elect to exclude from gross tested income amounts that have been subject to foreign tax at an effective rate that exceeds 90 percent of the U.S. rate.

By H.David Rosenbloom

Reaching an agreement on a financial transaction tax (FTT)would serve as a "political and institutional laboratory," said EU Tax Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, noting itwould mark the first tax directive adopted through enhanced cooperation.

By H.David Rosenbloom

the author examines two cases regardingwithholding tax exemptions on dividend and interest payments recently resolved by the Court of Justice of the European Union.

By H.David Rosenbloom

the author discusses the United Kingdom's proposed digital services tax in the context of OECD and EU efforts to address the perceived tax problems arising from digitalization.

By H.David Rosenbloom

B. Anthony Billings, Kyungjin Kim and Santanu Mitra Teaser: The authors examine the GILTI and FDII provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, aswell as the proposed regulations on GILTI and FDII, and explain how taxpayers can maximize their FDII deductions.

By H.David Rosenbloom

China has not announced any plan to join the DST club, and it has not released any opinion on the digital tax debate. This article looks at China's digital economy, its developing tax system, and the powers shaping the digital tax debate to answer the reasons behind.

By H.David Rosenbloom

Carrie Brandon Elliot describes how imported mismatch payment rules in the section 267A proposed regulations can disallow deductions for payments that are included in the U.S. tax base under GILTI or subpart F, possibly creating double taxation.

By H.David Rosenbloom

New temporary regulations relating to the dividends received deduction might have consequences under recent guidance on income inclusions for some controlled foreign corporation shareholders.

By H.David Rosenbloom

Mindy Herzfeld examines attempts to allocate more multinational profits to market jurisdictions, pointing out thatwhile the recently proposed U.S. regulations on FDIIwill have to split the pie only between foreign- and U.S.-generated income, the OECD's taskwill be much harder.

By H.David Rosenbloom

Lee A. Sheppard discusses pending tax treaties and protocols in the U.S. Senate and how the chamber might finally be taking action to ratify agreementswith Hungary, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and others.

By H.David Rosenbloom

Lee A. Sheppard discusses pending tax treaties and protocols in the U.S. Senate and how the chamber might finally be taking action to ratify agreementswith Hungary, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and others.

By H.David Rosenbloom

At least for purposes of enforcing pre-2019 law, Poland's tax administrationwill not refer to secret comparables or require that taxpayers use domestic transactions or companieswhen applying the selected transfer pricing method.

By H.David Rosenbloom

H. David Rosenbloom notes that a proposed elective exclusion of high-tax non-subpart F income from tested income contained in recent proposed regs has no statutory basis.

At least for purposes of enforcing pre-2019 law, Poland's tax administrationwill not refer to secret comparables or require that taxpayers use domestic transactions or companieswhen applying the selected transfer pricing method.

At least for purposes of enforcing pre-2019 law, Poland's tax administrationwill not refer to secret comparables or require that taxpayers use domestic transactions or companieswhen applying the selected transfer pricing method.

On March 5 the U.S. Treasury and the IRS issued proposed regulations under section 250 (REG-104464-18) that provide guidance for determining the amount of the deduction for foreign-derived intangible income. Importantly, the proposed regulations also identify the required documentation that taxpayers must have by the FDII filing date to secure their FDII deductions. For each sale of property and provision of service, documentation is required both as to the recipient as a foreign person and as to the foreign use of that property or service.

Ireland vowed to reform environmental taxes as part of a sweeping new plan to arrest the damaging effects of greenhouse gas emissions, but stopped short of a unilateral commitment to carbon neutrality by 2050.

While discussing President Trump's trade policy agenda, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizerwas confronted about the administration's liberal use of tariffs,which he said areworth some economic discomfort in the United States.

The three British Crown Dependencies - Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man - said onwednesday theywould move to reveal publicly the true ownership of firms based in their jurisdictions, a changewelcomed by anti-corruption campaigners.

The Dutch government may reconsider plans to cut the country's corporate tax rate to 20.5 percent, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Tuesday.

Recent rules on the international provisions of 2017's tax law attempt to resolve gaps and contradictions in the legislation's framework for global intangible low-taxed income ÔøΩ and in doing so, raise questions aboutwhether they exceed regulatory authority.

Rocio Bermudez, tax global practices & transfer pricing senior manager at Repsol, spoke to ITR about her company's participation in the first pilot of the International Compliance Assurance Programme.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committeewill likely hold a hearing nextweek on bilateral tax treaties and act on them the followingweek, Chairman Jim Risch said June 12.