International

  • 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.

  • May 08, 2024

    4th Circ. Asks If High Court Ruling Bars Credit Suisse Tipster

    A Fourth Circuit panel questioned Wednesday whether a U.S. Supreme Court ruling prevented it from reviving a whistleblower case by a former Credit Suisse employee alleging the bank helped U.S. citizens evade taxes after paying a $2.6 billion criminal penalty.

  • May 08, 2024

    Auto Cos. Brace For EV Battery Compliance Hurdles

    New federal regulations aimed at shoring up the domestic electric vehicle manufacturing supply chain give automakers a much-needed two-year cushion to navigate a compliance minefield, and to figure out how to reinvigorate the recent waning consumer demand for electric vehicles.

  • May 08, 2024

    Africa Should Solve Own Tax Problems, Nigerian Official Says

    The solutions to Africa's taxation challenges should come from those actually on the continent, not the Western world, the chairman of Nigeria's tax authority said at an African Tax Administration Forum meeting, the authority said Wednesday.

  • May 08, 2024

    EGC Won't Annul EU Decision To Toss Spanish Tax Scheme

    The European General Court will not annul a European Commission decision that a Spanish tax scheme for vessels built in its domestic shipyards must be abandoned because it was incompatible with the European Union's internal market, according to a judgment released Wednesday.

  • May 08, 2024

    Ambulance Co.'s Former Owner Gets 6 Years For Tax Evasion

    The former owner of an ambulance company was sentenced to more than six years in federal prison for failing to pay employment taxes to the federal government and obstructing the Internal Revenue Service as it tried to collect, according to Virginia federal court documents.

  • May 08, 2024

    A Foley Hoag Co-Chair Joins Litigation Firm As Name Partner

    Litigation and dispute resolution firm Elliott Kwok Levine & Jaroslaw LLP will operate under a new name after welcoming as its newest name partner a former federal prosecutor who most recently co-chaired Foley Hoag LLP's white-collar crime and government investigations practice.

  • May 08, 2024

    UN To Publish Draft Terms Of Reference For Tax Pact In June

    National governments agreed Wednesday to publish the first draft of terms of reference for the United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation for a two-week consultation during the week beginning June 3.

  • May 08, 2024

    EU Races To Deals On Withholding Tax, Digital VAT

    European Union countries are trying to clear the final hurdles for deals on May 14 regarding a withholding tax refund law and a package to modernize value-added tax reporting, although some potential vetoes remain after a preparatory meeting, EU sources said Wednesday.

  • May 08, 2024

    Offshore Drilling Co. Demands $70M Refund From IRS

    The IRS wrongfully withheld $69.7 million in tax refunds to an offshore drilling company, despite acknowledging that the refunds are justified by net operating loss carrybacks authorized by a pandemic law and then promising to pay, the company said in Texas federal court.

  • May 08, 2024

    EU Agrees To Send Russian Assets' Revenue To Ukraine

    European Union countries reached a deal Wednesday to transfer the net income from frozen and immobilized Russian state assets to EU funds for rebuilding Ukraine and buying arms for the country, an EU commissioner said.

  • May 08, 2024

    EU Discusses Monitoring Measures Against Tax Havens

    The European Union is considering an annual monitoring process over defensive measures against tax havens in force in the 27 bloc countries, an EU official said Wednesday.

  • May 08, 2024

    Slow Tax Decisions By EU States Are Harmful, Lawmaker Says

    The slow pace of European Union countries in reaching decisions on tax issues harms the bloc's economy, a conservative member of the European Parliament said in a document sent to journalists Wednesday.

  • May 08, 2024

    EU Calls For Responses On Information Exchange Law

    The European Union's executive branch is seeking responses on the law that governs the exchange of information between tax authorities in the group of 27 nations, as a senior EU tax official said it was time to "assess the need for fine tuning."

  • May 07, 2024

    Biz Orgs. Ask 10th Circ. To Toss Economic Substance Ruling

    The Tenth Circuit must not uphold a Colorado federal court's ruling that it didn't need to determine whether economic substance doctrine was relevant before disallowing an intercompany transaction by Liberty Global Inc., three business groups told the Tenth Circuit in briefs Tuesday.

  • May 07, 2024

    India's Top Court Upholds Tax On Employee Perks

    A catch-all provision in India's tax on employee perks does not grant excessive power to the tax authority, and the tax rate on interest-free loans as perks is not unconstitutional, the Supreme Court of India affirmed Tuesday.

  • May 07, 2024

    Industry Groups Suggest Changes To Aussie Reporting Rules

    A coalition of global fund industry associations asked Australia to further amend its proposal for public country-by-country tax data reporting by including, among other measures, a provision that would allow companies to withhold sensitive information, according to a letter released Tuesday by the U.S. Treasury Department.

  • May 07, 2024

    India High Court Says Biz's Tax Refunds Can't Be Held Back

    Indian tax authorities must refund value-added taxes of 225 million rupees ($2.7 million) to a business instead of withholding them to offset future tax liabilities, the country's top court ruled.

  • May 07, 2024

    Latin American, Caribbean 2022 Tax Revenue Up, OECD Says

    Tax revenue in Latin American and Caribbean countries rose in 2022, thanks in large part to gains in the gas and oil sector, but the average tax-to-gross domestic product ratio in the region still lags behind the OECD average, the organization said Tuesday.

  • May 07, 2024

    14 Arrested In €15M VAT Fraud Ring Tied To Lubricating Oil

    Authorities arrested 14 people as part of an investigation into a crime ring that evaded more than €15 million ($16.1 million) in value-added taxes and other levies tied to lubricating oil, the European Public Prosecutor's Office said Tuesday.

Expert Analysis

  • Key Takeaways From IRS Reversal On FDII Stance

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    The Internal Revenue Service's recent memo regarding allocation of deferred compensation expenses for purposes of foreign-derived intangible income is a departure from the agency's previous position and may have implications beyond the context of deferred compensation, say attorneys at Miller & Chevalier.

  • New Tax Decree Suggests Expansion In Dutch Transfer Pricing

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    A July 1 decree from Dutch tax authorities updating transfer pricing guidance heralds a major change in how intercompany financial transactions are considered for transfer pricing purposes and forebodes significant audit activity, say Monique van Herksen and Clive Jie-A-Joen at Simmons and Simmons.

  • Is NJ's Voluntary Transfer Pricing Initiative Really Voluntary?

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    The New Jersey Division of Taxation's voluntary transfer pricing audit initiative promises penalty abatement to taxpayers that elect to participate and agree to the division's proposed adjustments, but the effective penalties associated with nonparticipation raise questions about the program's voluntary nature, say attorneys at McDermott.

  • Global Tax Chiefs Should Look To US Whistleblower Programs

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    As the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement develops its international whistleblower program to address tax evasion and money laundering schemes in new areas like cryptocurrency, it should take lessons from highly successful U.S. programs on which features to include and pitfalls to avoid, say Neil Getnick and Nico Gurian at Getnick & Getnick.

  • What Microcaptive Reporting Ruling May Mean For The IRS

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    In CIC v. Internal Revenue Service, a Tennessee federal court’s decision to set aside an IRS requirement to disclose microcaptive insurance arrangements may be a step toward evidentiary standards to show that the potential for abuse in a lawful transaction is sufficient to support heightened disclosure requirements, says Samuel Lauricia at Weston Hurd.

  • US Should Leverage Tax Rules To Deter Business With Russia

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    The U.S. should further restrict the flow of resources available for the Putin regime's war in Ukraine by denying U.S. businesses that operate in Russia or Belarus foreign tax credits and global intangible low-taxed income preferences, and by terminating its tax treaty with Russia, says Reuven Avi-Yonah at University of Michigan Law School.

  • Justices Must Apply Law Evenly In Shadow Docket Rulings

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    In recent shadow docket decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court has inconsistently applied the requirement that parties demonstrate irreparable harm to obtain injunctive relief, which is problematic for two separate but related reasons, says David Hopkins at Benesch.

  • US Investors Stand To Benefit From Brazil's New Forex Law

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    Brazil's New Foreign Exchange Law facilitates negotiations and reduces bureaucracy for foreign investments, making it a good time for U.S. investors looking for projects with a positive environmental, social and governance impact to allocate funds to Brazilian energy and infrastructure, say Jorge Kamine and Juliana Pimentel at Willkie.

  • A Landmark UK Enforcement Case For Crypto-Assets

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    HM Revenue and Customs' recent seizure of nonfungible tokens from three people under investigation for value-added tax fraud promises to be the first of many such actions against crypto-assets, so investors should preemptively resolve potential tax matters with U.K. law enforcement agencies to avoid a rude awakening, says Andrew Park at Andersen.

  • Simplifying Tax Issues For Nonresident Athletes In Canada

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    Tax compliance can be particularly challenging for nonresident professional athletes playing in Canada, but as NHL contract negotiations approach a close, it's worth looking at some ways the tax burden can be mitigated, say Marie-France Dompierre and Marc Pietro Allard at Davies Ward.

  • Steps For Universities As DOJ Shifts Foreign Influence Policy

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    Notwithstanding Wednesday's U.S. Department of Justice announcement terminating the initiative targeting Chinese influence and raising the bar for criminal prosecutions, universities should ensure their compliance controls meet new disclosure standards and that they can efficiently respond to inquiries about employees' foreign connections, say attorneys at Covington.

  • Why I'll Miss Arguing Before Justice Breyer

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    Carter Phillips at Sidley shares some of his fondest memories of retiring Justice Stephen Breyer both inside and out of the courtroom, and explains why he thinks the justice’s multipronged questions during U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments were everything an advocate could ask for.

  • Corporate Reporting Considerations As Tax Meets ESG

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    With the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing season upon us amid increasing pressure for greater transparency around effective tax rates and tax strategies, multinational companies must decide how they will approach voluntary tax reporting and prepare their responses if they want to control the narrative, say Michael Lebovitz and Jenny Austin at Mayer Brown.

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