International

  • May 13, 2024

    House GOP Bills Target Foreign Funding To Tax-Exempt Orgs

    The House Ways and Means Committee will vote Wednesday on a package of bills that would increase scrutiny of foreign donations to tax-exempt organizations, including legislation that would require those organizations to publicly report the donations, the Joint Committee on Taxation announced Monday.

  • May 13, 2024

    Income Nixes Exxon's 'Final Loss' Deduction, Court Says

    Exxon's Norwegian operation cannot deduct 900 million krone ($83.2 million) from its fiscal year 2012 taxable income that it spent liquidating an Exxon subsidiary in Denmark, a European court ruled Monday.

  • May 13, 2024

    2nd Circ. Won't Revive UBS Suit Over Disclosed Account Info

    The Second Circuit declined Monday to revive a couple's suit accusing UBS of fraudulently flagging an account to the Internal Revenue Service, finding that any alleged harm resulting from an audit would have been caused by the agency itself.

  • May 13, 2024

    Int'l Authorities Want Increased Anti-Money Laundering Efforts

    Countries need to do more to tackle the "huge illicit profits" being generated by international crime organizations and used for harmful practices such as funding terrorism, the heads of the Financial Action Task Force, Interpol and a United Nations group said Monday.

  • May 13, 2024

    Estonia Needs To Improve Property, Health Taxes, OECD Says

    While Estonia has the lowest ratio of government debt to gross domestic product of any OECD country, it has numerous areas where it could improve its tax system, from broadening its tax base to increasing healthcare funding, the OECD said Monday.

  • May 13, 2024

    EU Initiative Pushes Bloc To Strengthen Carbon Taxing

    The European Commission on Monday officially registered a citizen initiative to focus on accelerating the taxing of greenhouse gas emissions as well as making it more equitable, giving the group behind it a year to meet certain criteria that would force the European Union's executive arm to act.

  • May 13, 2024

    Houston Truck Co. Doesn't Owe $2M Excise Tax, 5th Circ. Told

    A Houston truck company that sells tires made by a Chinese manufacturer doesn't owe $2 million in import taxes because it's not legally the tire importer, the company told the Fifth Circuit in asking it to affirm a ruling that could split circuits.

  • May 13, 2024

    Estonia Objecting To VAT Proposal On 'Neutrality' Grounds

    Estonia is objecting to a proposed overhaul of European Union value-added tax rules because the proposal doesn't respect the principle of "neutrality," the country's finance minister said Monday, casting doubt on the fate of the proposal, which needs agreement by all 27 EU countries to pass.

  • May 13, 2024

    EU Chair Offers Compromise To Clinch Withholding Tax Deal

    The chair of European Union finance ministers offered last-minute concessions to try to persuade holdouts the Czech Republic and Poland to agree to a withholding tax refund law, a document published Monday showed.

  • May 11, 2024

    Gov't Urges 8th Circ. To Uphold 3M's $24M Pricing Adjustment

    The U.S. government asked the Eighth Circuit to uphold a U.S. Tax Court decision allowing the IRS to allocate nearly $24 million from 3M's Brazilian affiliate, arguing the company's appeal involves misplaced reliance on a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

  • May 10, 2024

    5 Goals Gov'ts Have For The UN Tax Convention

    Transfer pricing, country-by-country reporting, wealth taxation, the digital economy and the participation of developing countries in negotiations are topics governments at the United Nations said they want to address during the first session on drafting terms of reference for the Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation.

  • May 10, 2024

    Austria Eyes Fines For Fake Invoices Used In Tax Fraud

    People creating false invoices in Austria could face fines of up to €100,000 ($108,000) as the country looks to crack down on tax fraud involving fictitious businesses, the country's Ministry of Finance said Friday.

  • May 10, 2024

    DC Tax Atty Can't Use Ch. 7 To Ditch Depo In $19M Theft Suit

    A corporate D.C. tax attorney accused of bilking a former client out of $19 million via a captive insurance scam will be deposed, despite a stay in the Maryland federal case against him and his firm after both filed for bankruptcy.

  • May 10, 2024

    Use Of AI For Tax Comment Letters Poses Ethical Quandaries

    While artificial intelligence can streamline the process of conducting a comprehensive review of complex, IRS-proposed federal tax regulations, tax attorneys must be aware of professional and ethical considerations when using it to help draft comment letters to submit to the agency.

  • May 10, 2024

    Australia Looks To Tweak Tax Exemption For US Entertainers

    Australia wants public comments on a proposal that would simplify the elimination of withholding taxes for U.S. entertainers who make $10,000 or less — or the Australian equivalent — in the country in a given year, the Australian Taxation Office said.

  • May 10, 2024

    Calif. OTA In Untested Area On Ruling That Biz Wants Binding

    A decision by California's Office of Tax Appeals that Microsoft can include 100% of the dividends from foreign affiliates in its California sales factor denominator pleased businesses, who now want the OTA to designate the opinion as precedential, thus binding on it and the state Franchise Tax Board.

  • May 10, 2024

    Osborne Clarke Lawyer To Face Tribunal Over Zahawi SLAPP

    An Osborne Clarke LLP partner who represented Nadhim Zahawi could face a disciplinary tribunal over allegations that he used intimidatory warnings in an attempt to silence a critic who was probing the former Conservative chancellor's tax affairs.

  • May 09, 2024

    Mich. Doctor Ordered To Stay In Jail Until Assets Repatriated

    A Michigan doctor fighting accusations that he failed to report his foreign bank accounts will stay in jail, as a federal court declined to release him Thursday when he didn't comply with an order to deposit over $1 million to cover the judgment against him.

  • May 09, 2024

    Pop Star Shakira's €6.6M Spanish Tax Fraud Case Dropped

    A Spanish court dropped a case alleging that Colombian pop superstar Shakira had willfully defrauded the country of €6.6 million ($7.1 million) worth of taxes in 2018, multiple news outlets reported Thursday.

  • May 09, 2024

    Pension Plans Want Witness Stopped In $2B Danish Dispute

    U.S. pension plans accused by Denmark's tax authority of committing $2.1 billion in fraud against the European country by taking illegal refunds on dividends asked a New York federal court to reject the authority's request to depose a witness who pled guilty in Denmark.

  • May 09, 2024

    Voluntary Carbon Credit Trades Will Trigger UK VAT

    Transactions involving voluntary carbon credits in the U.K. will be assessed value-added tax starting in September, HM Revenue & Customs said Thursday.

  • May 09, 2024

    IRS Turning to Final PFIC Rules This Year, Official Says

    The Internal Revenue Service expects to "begin in earnest" this year on final regulations for partnerships that hold stock in passive foreign investment companies, including guidance that would treat partnerships as an aggregate of their partners, an agency official said Thursday.

  • May 09, 2024

    Country Adjustment Would Undermine Common EU Tax Base

    Allowing countries within the European Union to adjust companies' allocated tax base under proposed rules would undermine the rules' goal of streamlining the corporate tax base, according to business groups. 

  • May 08, 2024

    DOJ Says Man Owes $6.2M After Failing To Report Foreign Biz

    A man owes tax penalties of $6.2 million to the U.S. after failing to disclose his ownership interests in two foreign entities from 1997 to 2004, the government told a California federal court Wednesday.

  • May 08, 2024

    Biz Groups Tell 10th Circ. Economic Substance Doesn't Apply

    The economic substance doctrine doesn't apply when a business considers tax in making a choice between two legally permissible alternatives, two organizations told the Tenth Circuit in their briefs supporting Liberty Global's position in its $109 million tax refund bid.

Expert Analysis

  • How Foreign Info Return Penalty Case May Benefit Taxpayers

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    The U.S. Tax Court's recent decision that the Internal Revenue Service cannot penalize taxpayers for failing to file foreign corporation information returns may give similarly situated taxpayers an opportunity to also avoid penalties, provided they protect their rights before the decision is overturned or mooted by legislation, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

  • The Nuts And Bolts Of IRS Domestic Content Tax Credit

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    Recent IRS guidance provides specifics on how renewable energy projects can qualify for bonus tax credits by meeting U.S. domestic content rules, but also creates a qualification framework that will be complicated for project developers to navigate, say Scott Cockerham and Wolfram Pohl at Orrick.

  • Taxing The Digital Economy: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

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    U.S. tech companies should watch for important developments in international taxation, including the resolution of Apple's decade-old state aid case, growing frustration with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's global tax plan and adoption of the digital services tax instead, says Joyce Beebe at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.

  • Big Tax Changes For Multinational Cos. In Budget Proposal

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    The Biden administration’s fiscal year 2024 budget proposes changes that would materially alter decades-old Internal Revenue Code provisions, requiring a shift in multinational corporations' tax planning strategies comparable to that required after enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, say Xenia Garofalo and Kyle Colonna at Eversheds Sutherland.

  • Senate Credit Suisse Report Puts Attention On Banks, Trusts

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    The Senate Finance Committee's recent finding that Credit Suisse violated a plea agreement struck over its role in enabling offshore tax evasion has important ramifications for banks and trusts, including how they onboard, document and report on transactions relevant to U.S. reporting requirements, say Will Barry and Ian Herbert at Miller & Chevalier.

  • Seeking IRS Accountability For Faulty Microcaptive Notice

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    Like the taxpayers in Standard Insurances v. U.S. seeking to expand earlier wins in microcaptive insurance cases that limit IRS use of improperly obtained information, others should consider ways to hold the agency accountable and provide incentive for it to follow the law going forward, says Joshua Smeltzer at Gray Reed.

  • Biden Admin. Proposals Both Encourage And Thwart EV Adoption

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    While the Biden administration has been aggressively focused on promoting electric vehicles from the start, its recently issued guidance on EV tax credits and its restrictive new auto emissions proposal create a sense of implementation whiplash that may frustrate manufacturers and consumers, says Levi McAllister at Morgan Lewis.

  • The Key Issues Keeping Transfer Pricing A Top Tax Concern

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    Several challenges preventing a global economic reemergence from the pandemic era are making practitioners reevaluate commonly used transfer pricing models, and embrace new technologies and ways of doing business, say Farnaz Amini and Sophia Castro Jurado at Marcum.

  • Curtailing Offshore Tax-Advantaged Investment In China

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    The U.S. government's plans to establish a new outbound investment regime hold the potential to arrest Chinese companies' increasing use of offshore, tax-advantaged locations to raise capital, says David Plotinsky at Morgan Lewis.

  • Cos. May Want To Wait Out US-EU Green Incentives Fight

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    As the European Union considers measures to compete with the Inflation Reduction Act's incentives for U.S. production of clean tech, and EU and U.S. officials discuss a possible compromise, companies in the green sector should consider taking a wait-and-see approach to investment decisions, says Todd Thacker at Goldberg Segalla.

  • India's Budget Proposals May Ease Entry For Certain Sectors

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    India’s recently released budget includes proposals to facilitate doing business in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City and moderate thousands of compliance requirements, opening up new opportunities for foreign businesses in the digital infrastructure, manufacturing and renewable energy sectors, say Mukesh Butani and Seema Kejriwal at BMR Legal.

  • High Court Ax Of Atty-Client Privilege Case Deepens Split

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's recent dismissal of In re: Grand Jury as improvidently granted maintains a three-way circuit split on the application of attorney-client privilege to multipurpose communications, although the justices have at least shown a desire to address it, say Trey Bourn and Thomas DiStanislao at Butler Snow.

  • US-India Advance Pricing Resolutions Should Reassure Cos.

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    The United States' and India's tax authorities' recent resolution of a significant number of pending advance pricing agreements should reduce taxpayer uncertainty, reassure companies of the nations' good working relationship and improve India's investment environment, say Miller Williams and Caroline Setliffe at Eversheds Sutherland.

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