Governments have dismantled, or are in the process of amending, nearly 100 preferential tax regimes as part of the OECD/G20 BEPS (Base Erosion & Profit Shifting) standards to improve the international tax framework, according to a progress report released this month.
The report provides details on the outcome of peer reviews undertaken of 164 preferential tax regimes identified amongst the more than 100 jurisdictions participating in the OECD Inclusive Framework on BEPS.
New and innovative payment products and services are being developed and used at an ever-increasing pace. These new payment products and services have the potential of being used for money laundering or terrorist financing. Their vulnerabilities, associated risk factors and risk mitigants were described in earlier typologies reports by the FATF.
Liechtenstein today deposited its instrument of ratification for the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (“the Convention”). By doing so, Liechtenstein underlines its commitment to fighting tax evasion and avoidance and takes another important step in implementing the Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information in Tax Matters developed by the OECD and G20 countries as well as automatic exchange of Country-by-Country Reports under the OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project.
As I hear it, if the Netherlands were to substantively amend its ‘maximum 20% bonus of salary’ regulation, then the relocation decision for many EU facing funds would be an easy choice. But because of that regulation, it has created an opportunity for other cities to pitch to the institutions for the funds and trading business relocation.
On June 24, 2016, the House Republicans released their tax reform blueprint, the last part of their “Better Way” plan. The plan includes reasons for tax reform and the basics of the plan. There is no legislative language so the details are not all there. But, here are some highlights:
Regardless of how your tax team is organized, managing a tax organization across multiple locations is always a challenge. Even the most savvy management executives seek to find innovative ways to make people feel more connected. Whether you have a corporate tax team of 200 spread across 50 countries, or a corporate tax team of 10 spread across 3 countries; you must always strive to be creative to be effective. Years ago, everyone in the tax department was expected to be working in the same location; and now things have progressed to managing geographically dispersed teams. Read More
Timing of year-end contributions: Contributions made by check are deductible in 2015 if the check is mailed by year-end. If payment is made by bank credit card, it is deductible in 2015 if the charge is made by year-end. It doesn’t matter hen the credit card payment is made. If the donation is made with a retail store credit card, the deduction cannot be taken until the card is paid, even though it was charged in
Donations of securities and other property:
This is an excellent way to make a contribution without paying cash. Taxpayers can deduct the fair value of the securities on the date of the gift. Donating appreciated securities Read More
We have good news for anyone conducting business in South Africa. One of our super smart tax experts, Dr. Daniel Erasmus recently acquired the Africa Tax, Law and Finance Hub and is offering complimentary access to the site for a limited time only.
We highly recommend you go view our tax professionals video section and scroll down to meet him in the video presentation he has on TaxConnections. If you have any business operations in South Africa, Dr. Erasmus is extraordinarily knowledgeable on the subject. Read More
Section 2004 of the “SURFACE TRANSPORTATION ACT OF 2015” implements new reporting or what may otherwise be called “stepped up basis conformity”, for executors to ensure basis of assets inherited by heirs of an estate is in agreement with the value determination for federal estate tax purposes.
Section 6035 of the IRC is the NEW provision that outlines the requirement to provide basis information to persons acquiring property from decedents. Domestic estates filing IRS Form 706 or 706-A, or non-resident estates filing IRS Form 706-NA are affected by the new reporting provisions. Generally filing of these returns is done where taxable estate value exceeds the requirement to file threshold. For domestic estates, the 2015 threshold is $5.43M.
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During 2015 readers of TaxConnections Worldwide Tax Blogs arrived from more than 200 countries and spent an average of 12:45 during each visit. These are mighty numbers and they are due to the tax experts who joined our community and submitted their tax expertise and blog posts throughout the year.
We would like to congratulate our top tax blog contributors and link you to the top posts this year. We are grateful for the journey we made with you throughout the year and look forward to enjoying a successful 2016 with you.
Check out the top 20 Tax Blogs in 2015!
Story of A Good Citizen Who Reports Foreign Bank Accounts But Forgets FBARs! Huh? – Manasa Nadig
How To Live Outside The United States In An FBAR And FATCA World – John Richardson
Read This Before Tossing Old Tax Records – Barry Fowler
An important tax update was made regarding the rate increase and withholding of tax on U.S. property dispositions. On December 18th, President Obama, signed H.R. 2029, the tax (the “Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015”) and spending bills (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016) to fund the government for its 2016 fiscal year.
The December The Act increases the rate of withholding from dispositions of U.S. real property interests under §1445 from 10% to 15%, but remains at 10% for residences sold for less than $1 million.
The withholding exemption where the sale price is under $300,000US and the purchaser will acquire the property as their principal residence is still in effect.
On December 18th of 2015, President Obama signed into law a sweeping $1.14 trillion dollar funding bill that will keep the federal government operating through September 30th of 2016. In connection to the tax aspects of this comprehensive and pivotal legislation, the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015 (hereinafter the “PATH Act”) accomplished considerably more than the typical tax-extenders legislation passed in previous years and truly signifies a dynamic paradigm shift as the PATH Act makes permanent over twenty leading tax incentives while extending other tax incentives over either a five year period or a two year period.
In particular, the PATH Act meaningfully enhanced the R&D Tax Credit Program (hereinafter “RTC program”) on a myriad of levels. As an overview, the RTC program was initially added to the U.S. Internal Revenue Code (hereinafter the “Code”) in 1981 through the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 as a temporary provision of the Code. The RTC program had most recently expired on December 31, 2014. A tremendous paradigm shift to the RTC program was made possible through the PATH Act which not only renewed the RTC retroactively for all of calendar year 2015 but most importantly made the RTC program permanent. In addition, the enhanced RTC program has been considerably restructured to: Read More
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