Int'l Tax News

The Treasury Departmentwill refine guidelines that tell taxpayers how to show they qualify for a 2017 tax law perk for exporters, a Treasury official said.

The OECD haswarned that failure to reach a global agreement on how to tax the digital economy could lead to "international tax chaos."

A group of 15 Republicans on the Houseways and Means Committee urged thewhite House to "use all appropriate tools," potentially including trade responses, in response to taxes France and other countries are proposing for digital companies.

India is processing intercompany pricing pacts involving the U.S. and other countries at a faster clip than ever before, churning out 52 pacts in the year ended March 31, tax authorities said. Of the 52 deals India inked in 2018-19, 11were bilateral advance pricing agreements,which involve foreign tax departments aswell as companies, India's Central Board of Direct Taxes said.

The United Nations has issued a report, "Financing for Sustainable Development,"which calls for an overhaul to national and international financial systems in the face of inadequate digital tax rules and revenue.

Barbados Minister of Finance Ryan Straughn on March 20 presented to Parliament the draft 2019 budget,which proposes several new tax rules and amendments.

The imposition of additional taxes by European countries on U.S. technology giants could be metwith retaliatory measures on trade, a House Republican taxwriter iswarning.

The IRSwill likely seek to clarify a provision of the foreign-derived intangible income regs that establishes foreign use of intangible property used in manufacturing based on the location of the end-user.

The Austrian government is pushing a package of proposals to tax the digital economy comprising a 5 percent digital advertising tax and tax compliance measures targeting online booking and retail platforms.

France's digital services tax proposal has been amended to prevent double taxation and improve the transition to a global solution on digital taxation.

The Federal Court of Australia has held that two limited partnerships are taxable as companies on their Australian-source income and cannot claim treaty benefits as U.S. residents, setting aside a controversial earlier decision.

The EUwill ask the G-20 to give "the highest priority" to finding global solutions to the taxation of the digital economy.

The OECD recently published guidelines for countries thatwant online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay to assistwith VAT and goods and services tax collection, and stakeholders ÔøΩ including business ÔøΩ are giving them a standing ovation.

Australia's recent decision to not pursue a digital services tax has led to speculation that a similar levy under consideration by New Zealand might never come to fruition.

German Finance Minister Olaf Scholzwill urge financial leaders nextweek to strive for a minimum level of corporate taxation globally and increase debt transparency in developing countries, a senior German government official said on Friday.

With parliamentary elections looming, Australia's center-right government on April 2 presented a budget package calling for tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners and additional tax breaks for small and medium-size businesses.

An exemption from U.K. controlled foreign company rules for intragroup interest on debt funded by non-U.K. sources partially grants selective tax treatment to some multinationals and thus constitutes state aid, the European Commission said.

France is not specifically targeting U.S. internet giantswith a planned tax on digital service companies, its finance minister said in an interview, pushing back against pressure fromwashington to drop the levy.

In this article, the authors discuss the new Italian tax on digital services.

A Pennsylvania Democrat on Thursday reintroduced federal legislation thatwould make energy storage technologies fully eligible for the federal investment tax credit and joined scores of colleagues in calling for an extension of the ITC and other renewable energy credits that are currently scheduled to phase out.

Media-related businesses are united in their desire to 'level the playing field' on taxing traditional and digital companies, but they do not all agree on the bestway forward.

Tax directors are backing an independent standard-setting body, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), to introduce aworldwide standard to tax reporting and public disclosures, but manyworry that the standardwill clashwith CbCR.

The Australian Taxation Office is reviewing arrangements inwhich a multientity groupwith a large capital gain transfers the asset to an entitywith significant intragroup debt before selling the entity to a third party.

The European Commission has not yet determinedwhether itwill challenge a court decision overruling its finding that Belgium's excess profit tax schemewas illegal state aid, according to EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.

The outcome of the OECD's ongoingwork on a global minimum tax regime may prompt the United States to rethink some recently enacted international tax rules.

In this article, the authors analyze 11 issues that the proposed U.S. base erosion and antiabuse tax regulations raise for the international banking industry.

The final Treasury regulations on global intangible low-taxed incomewill improve on the proposed regulations by adding clarity on key issues, including the scope of the proposed antiabuse rules.

Two companies have appealed a decision by the EU General Court that Spain's goodwill amortization scheme provided a selective advantage to foreign companies in violation of state aid rules.

A U.K. court has held that domestic legislation imposing immediate corporate tax liability for capital gains on intragroup stock transfers is a disproportionate measure that violates the EU right to freedom of establishment.

Carrie Brandon Elliot reviews several of the latest blockchain projects and how they affect the economy, illustrating how decentralization, anonymity, and massive transaction volumes may render the OECD's two pillars obsolete in the near future.

Mindy Herzfeld describes proposals to revise global tax rules to allocate a greater share of multinational companies' profits to market jurisdictions, including several presented during the OECD's recent consultation on the tax challenges of digitization.

Lee A. Sheppard examines the proposed regs to implement the hybrid mismatch rules thatwere included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Stephenwang is counting the costs of President Donald Trump's tradewar. He had to put down 12 times more cash as a guarantee to U.S. customs that hewould pay the bill for tariffs on the Chinese-made pumps, valves and motors he imports. The cost of the guarantee - a U.S. customs bond - has shot up, an additional hit to importers already facing steep customs bills adding up to tens of billions of dollars for tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on incoming Chinese goods, aswell as steel and aluminum imports.

Stephenwang is counting the costs of President Donald Trump's tradewar. He had to put down 12 times more cash as a guarantee to U.S. customs that hewould pay the bill for tariffs on the Chinese-made pumps, valves and motors he imports. The cost of the guarantee - a U.S. customs bond - has shot up, an additional hit to importers already facing steep customs bills adding up to tens of billions of dollars for tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on incoming Chinese goods, aswell as steel and aluminum imports.

The U.S. economy slowed more than initially thought in the fourth quarter, keeping growth in 2018 below the Trump administration's 3 percent target, and corporate profits fell by the most in a year after a one-off boost from lower taxes.

As the international push to discourage tax avoidance and secrecywages on, many countries that formerly marketed themselves as tax havens are now looking to become hubs of blockchain, the online ledger system used to record cryptocurrencies ÔøΩ and much more.

While the European Union and Britainwrestle over the "Irish backstop" issue in their stalled Brexit agreement, a similar problem is taxing another island at the other end of the continent - Cyprus.

U.S. companies more than quadrupled the amount of foreign earnings they sent home in 2018 following enactment of a tax-law overhaul in late 2017, though the size of so-called repatriations declined after an initial spike.

PwC submitted, on behalf of a group of companies, a comment letter on February 19, 2019,which addresses an issue arising from the interaction of Section 267(a)(3)(B)with the TCJArepeal ofSection 958(b)(4).

British businesses havewelcomed confirmation from the UK Government that Making Tax Digitalwill not be rolled out to other taxes and more businesses in 2020.

As Congress opens discussions on how best to address climate change, some opponents of these efforts are positioning the Green New Deal and carbon taxes as conflicting strategies. This should not be the case. Congress should consider this an opportunity to demonstrate that the most efficient approach to addressing climate changewould incorporate both strategies.

When Republicans rewrote the international tax system in 2017, theywere trying to help U.S. companies like Procter & Gamble Co. compete in foreign markets and create domestic jobs. Fifteen months later, the Ohio-based consumer products maker and other U.S.-based multinationalswarn the new law could instead put them at a disadvantage globally and reduce their incentive to invest at home.

The current mantra from opponents of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is that the strong economic growth that followed is the result of a "sugar high." Many nowwrongly argue the U.S. is headed for a sharp economic slowdown, possibly even recession. These arguments reflect political and ideologicalwishful thinking, not a substantive analysis ofwhat is happening in the economy.

The American Institute of CPAs has recommended changes to proposed foreign tax credit regulations (REG-105600-18) on topics that include the determination of stock basis in connectionwith section 965(b)(1), the allocation and apportionment of research and experimentation expenses, and characterizing stock of a noncontrolled 10 percent corporation.

In the "Fiscal Policy for Financing Sustainable Development in Africa" report issued on March 26, the UN Economic Commission for Africa called for a refrain from unproductive tax incentives and a reform of the tax system administration through digitalization.

Germany's federal and state governments have decided to drop a controversial plan to apply a 15 percentwithholding tax on royalties to payments for online advertising made to foreign internet companies, including Google and Facebook.

Defense contractors may have caught a big breakwith their eligibility for foreign-derived intangible income under proposed regs, but not all arms sales that ultimately go to foreign governmentswill benefit from the deduction.

In this article, the authors discuss how taxpayers and tax authorities alike can use impact evaluation to examine the effects of cooperative compliance programs. More specifically, they consider how to design an impact evaluation that can thoroughly assess the outcomes of the International Compliance Assurance Program, a new project that the OECD hopeswill provide early certainty, offer assurances regarding tax obligations, and promote the efficient use of resources by both tax administrations and taxpayers.

In a Tax Court petition contesting $219 million in transfer pricing adjustments, Zimmer Biomet Holdings alleges that the IRS violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA)with its former regulations on outbound intangible transfers in corporate reorganizations.

The heads of some 50 tax administrations are moving to phase two of an experimental multilateral tax risk assessment program ÔøΩ this timewith 17 countries ÔøΩ as part of their ongoingwork to enhance tax certainty.