Int'l Tax News

In this article, the author discusses the Court of Justice of the European Union's judgment in A-Brauerei ÔøΩ holding that an exemption from Germany's real estate transfer tax should not be considered state aid ÔøΩ and looks at the expected impact of the ruling.

The EU has claimed a "final victory" in a long-running disputewith the United States, saying awTO appellate body ruled that Boeing has continued to receive illegal tax subsidies despite earlier rulings banning them.

Tax administrations have proposed approaches to ensure the taxation of the sharing and gig economy, including developing a model allowing platforms to report seller details in a standardizedway.

The Council of the European Union has issued a conclusion, endorsing the revised non-cooperative jurisdictions blacklist and praising those jurisdictions that have resolved deficiencies in anti-money laundering and terrorist financing by the agreed deadline.

A U.S. subsidiary of a global satellite operator has sued the IRS in Tax Court, alleging that the agency erred in determining that three of its controlled foreign corporations guaranteed notesworth $1 billion.

Facedwith twice as many advance pricing agreement applications and reduced staffing compared to 2017, the IRS advance pricing and mutual agreement program reported a six-month rise in the median application processing time for 2018.

Successive U.K. governments have failed to rein in tax avoidance by digital behemoths like Google and Amazon.com, so Britain should target use of Ireland as a tax haven enabling that practice, a U.K. tax advocacy group said Thursday.

The Internal Revenue Service's Large Business and International Division issued a practice unit Friday for training agency personnel about U.S. multinational companies' ability to get agency helpwhen a foreign government initiates an income tax adjustment.

Christine Lagarde, International Monetary Fund managing director, in a March 25 speech called for reforms to the current international corporate tax system so that "all countries can benefit, including low-income nations."

Despite the complexity inherent in designing a global residual profit allocation system of the type recently proposed by the OECD, the U.S. global intangible low-taxed income rules suggest that the challenges are not insurmountable.

Robert Goulder examines the use of knowledge-sharing programs among national revenue bodies, as exemplified by the group Tax Inspectorswithout Borders.

Several provisions in the base erosion and antiabuse tax guidance are being criticized as running contrary to statutory language or intent, including the non-exclusion of subpart F inclusions and the application of a blended rate.

Representative Lloyd Doggett and Senator Sheldonwhitehouse are introducing two bills March 13 thatwould effectively repeal some provisions of the Republican tax overhaul of 2017 that the Democrats say encourage outsourcing.

Although the recent Tax Reform Law is not the structural tax reform the Colombian tax system has been demanding for several years, it introduces important measures regarding value-added tax, income tax, dividends, and indirect sale of assets. In addition, it creates a new Colombian Holding Company regime to incentivize multinational groups carrying out certain investment activities to establish their headquarters in Colombia.

Indian clothing suppliers to American and European brands say new tax incentiveswill help them lower prices and reclaim ground they've lost to competitors elsewhere in Asia. A new program to make textile exports effectively tax free comes as buyers in places like the U.S. are looking to diversify their supply chains after years of relying heavily on countries like China, said Sanjay Arora ofwazir Advisors, a textile industry consultancy.

The U.K. government believes that some profits fromwork carried out in the U.K. by U.K. traders, professionals and companies are partly being allocated to entities or individuals in overseas territorieswhere no tax, or a lower rate of tax is paid, hence partially or fully avoiding U.K. tax. The U.K. tax authority is addressing the issue of fragmented profits by bringing the profits accruing to U.K. traders, professionals and companies into the U.K. tax charge.

Italy has introduced tax measures to support companies in their digital transformation, looking specifically at how blockchain, artificial intelligence and the internet of thingswill have a significant impact on the future business model of Italian businesses.

"An impetus for rethinking international corporate taxation stems from the rise of highly profitable, technology-driven, digital-heavy business models," International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said March 25 in prepared opening remarks for an event inwashington.

France and the U.K. are edging closer to establishing a system to tax tech giants like Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, even as the OECD tries to reach global consensus on its efforts to rewrite international tax rules. The uptick in digital tax proposals,which most jurisdictions indicate are temporary measures, makes it clearwhat's at stake if efforts to find a global consensus at the OECD fail, tax practitionerswarned.

The 2017 tax overhaul reformed international tax rules in the U.S., including requiring companies to bring home offshore profits. Nearly a year and a half later, companies are stillwaiting for final guidance from the Treasury Department on many of those international rules. If the government finalizes rules by June 22, 2019, theywill be retroactively effective to the date of the law's passage. But if not, there could be a period of time inwhich the regulationswouldn't be effective. Here'swhere the international rules stand now.

The OECD released recommendations on how digital tech giants can aid in the international effort to crack down on value-added tax fraud.

Rahul Mitra of Dhruva Advisors LLP in New Delhi discusses the transfer pricing issues surrounding "marketing intangibles," following the OECD's release of revised guidelines.

In news analysis, Lee A. Sheppard describes how the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act limits the reach of the foreign tax credit.

Although intended as a means of increasing foreign digital companies' tax contributions, a digital services tax may be borne almost entirely by local consumers and businesses in the form of higher prices and commissions.

Whether they're streaming a movie on Netflix or buying a music album on iTunes, consumers are at risk of paying multiple taxes on the digital goods and services they buy. That's simply unfair, and Congress should do something about it. Suppose a resident of Nevada purchases a smartphone appwhile vacationing in Maine. The vendor's server happens to be located in Virginia. Currently, as a result of outdated lawswrittenwith brick and mortar stores in mind, there is nothing to prevent any and all of those states from levying a tax on that transaction, tripling the tax burden on the consumer.

France plans to make significant progresswith members of the G7 group of countries to reach an agreement on a minimum corporate tax rate after the OECD has presented itswork on taxing the digital economy to the G20 in June.

The South Korean government said itwill lower the stock transaction tax rate for shares traded on two major exchanges by 0.05 percentage point.

European officials have agreed to maintain funding for an information exchange program designed to curb tax dodging during the EU's next long-term budget period.

Nonstandardwork,which is on the rise in many countries, could have significant implications for tax revenues and raises serious questions aboutwhether and how tax systems should adapt accordingly, a new OECD paper says.

Australiawill not be joining the bandwagon of countries considering their own digital taxes, butwill insteadwait to seewhat comes of multilateral efforts coordinated by the OECD for taxing the digital economy.

In this article, the authors discuss the Netherlands' effort to overhaul its international tax ruling policy.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday that if therewas no international agreement on taxing digital companies by the second half of next year, Europe should go ahead anyway.

For global corporations, determining how to complywith the US tax reform provisions and manage tax liabilities is difficult because as soon they resolve one tax problem, another pops up.

Eric Solomon of the American Bar Association Section of Taxation has submitted comments on proposed regulations (REG-105600-18) that provide guidance on the determination of the foreign tax credit, suggesting that some provisions be reconsidered and others clarified.

The European Parliament's Special Committee on Financial Crimes, Tax Evasion, and Tax Avoidance (TAX3) has published its final recommendations after concluding its one-year mandate.

The U.S. Treasury has updated its timeline for the release of proposed regs on previously taxed income, now targeting the end of summer or early fall.

Canada is clamping down on tax evasion via the real estate sector, limiting stock option deductions for employees of large corporations, strengthening its international tax rules, and enhancing beneficial ownership data availability.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki suggested that a lack of consensus among EU member states on a digital tax regime could lead to more unilateral measures.

In this article, the author discusses issues regarding the arm's-length standard and its viability in today's evolving tax environment.

While some member states are moving rapidly to implement digital taxes that the EU failed to agree on as a community-wide directive, observers say such national laws conflictwith the EU's freedom of establishment clause.

Stephanie Soong Johnston delves into the OECD's March public consultation at its headquarters in Paris,where some of the taxworld's brightest minds gathered to discuss adapting the international tax rules for the digital age.

The European Commission has released a report by the Centre for European Economic Research analyzing the possible impacts of the draft common corporate tax base directive of October 2016 on the effective corporate tax burdens in EU member states.

In light of the profit-split method's potentially expanded role under a new regime for taxing the digital economy, the EU Joint Transfer Pricing Forum (JTPF)will exploreways to improve the method's clarity and simplicity.

Final regulated investment company rules clarify the treatment of subpart F and passive foreign investment company income inclusions, reversing Treasury and theIRS's 2016 proposed regulations.

Despite international progress on profit shifting, there are still policy gaps concerning opaque offshore ownership structures and corporate tax avoidance that are costing developing countries needed tax revenue.

The potential impact of a global minimum tax proposal on countries' taxing sovereigntywas a commonly raised issue during the OECD's public consultation.

Similarities between regulatory language in the foreign-derived intangible income provision and section 199 guidance could mean that regs under the defunct statutewill inform taxpayers on applying FDII's foreign use rule for general property.

Mindy Herzfeld examinesways to help the United States fix its flawed base erosion and antiabuse tax, saying the OECD's recent consultation document might offer a favorable path.