International

  • April 22, 2024

    Scotiabank Fights To Keep Peru VAT Claim Alive

    The Bank of Nova Scotia urged the World Bank's international arbitration institution in recently released documents not to dismiss the arbitration of its value-added tax dispute against Peru, saying the case raises issues of fact.

  • April 22, 2024

    Congress Can Enact Corp. Transparency, Orgs Tell 11th Circ.

    Congress is empowered to require American companies to report their beneficial owners to the federal government because there is ample evidence they've previously been used to fund hostile foreign actors, evade sanctions and traffic drugs, two think tanks told the Eleventh Circuit in an amici brief.

  • April 22, 2024

    Partnership Can't Claim $22.7M Loss, Tax Court Says

    The U.S. Tax Court on Monday upheld the IRS' decision to deny a $22.7 million loss deduction claimed by a Connecticut partnership, finding that underlying transactions involving a bankrupt Brazilian company's debt obligations amounted to a disguised property sale.

  • April 22, 2024

    Sweden Proposes Tax Breaks Ahead Of Budget Negotiations

    The Swedish Finance Ministry proposed adjusting its so-called expert tax incentive, which businesses use to attract external workers, among a series of tax changes offered up Monday.

  • April 22, 2024

    Trader Behind £1.4B Tax Fraud Thought Trades Were Valid

    A British trader accused of being the mastermind of a fraudulent trading scheme that cost Denmark's tax authority £1.4 billion ($1.7 billion) genuinely believed that the trades worked, his lawyer told a London court on Monday.

  • April 22, 2024

    Finland Discovers €30M In Undeclared Crypto Profits

    Finnish taxpayers made at least €30 million ($32 million) in undeclared cryptocurrency trade profits in 2022, Finland's tax authority said Monday, reminding taxpayers to include such profits in their filings this year.

  • April 22, 2024

    UAE Considering R&D Tax Break, Seeks Feedback

    The United Arab Emirates is seeking public input to help design a possible research and development tax incentive proposal to help drive innovation and growth, its Ministry of Finance said.

  • April 22, 2024

    Austria Eatery Busted 2nd Time On Tax Evasion Suspicion

    A Chinese restaurant in Austria was busted for a second time on suspicion of evading taxes, this time in the amount of €135,000 ($144,000), the country's finance minister announced, declaring that "the Austrian state cannot be an 'all you can eat' buffet for tax fraudsters."

  • April 22, 2024

    EU Probes Tax Breaks To Chinese Solar Panel Companies

    The European Commission has started two investigations into suspected tax breaks and other possibly illegal foreign subsidies to Chinese solar panel companies bidding for public contracts in Romania, notices in the EU's Official Journal showed Monday.

  • April 19, 2024

    KPMG Supports Aussie Pillar 2 Plan, With Reservations

    KPMG supports Australia's plans to implement the OECD's Pillar Two global minimum corporate tax plan in principle, the accounting firm said Friday, but it has some concerns, including with how often the government diverts from the organization's wording.

  • April 19, 2024

    UN Should Eye Unitary Taxes, DSTs For Tax Pact, Report Says

    Governments should use the United Nations tax convention as an opportunity to advance the overhaul of nexus away from transfer pricing and toward formulary apportionment, including digital services taxes, to achieve unitary taxation on corporate profits, scholars at the Brookings Institution said Friday in a report.

  • April 19, 2024

    UK Tax Pros Worried Public Unaware Of Crypto Tax Liabilities

    With the growing interest in crypto-asset trading, a group representing tax professionals in the U.K. said Friday that it is concerned HM Revenue & Customs isn't doing enough to make the public aware of its tax obligations, particularly with the lowered capital gains exemption.

  • April 19, 2024

    IRS Previews New Digital Assets Reporting Form

    The Internal Revenue Service released a draft of a form brokers will have to use for the first time to disclose their digital asset sales to the agency, including instructions for taxpayers whose transactions are subject to the reporting requirements. 

  • April 19, 2024

    DC Circ. Gives Expat's Challenge To GILTI Another Chance

    A D.C. federal court was wrong to dismiss an expatriate attorney's challenge to the global intangible low-taxed income regulations without addressing his argument that he had no other legal avenue, the D.C. Circuit said Friday as it remanded the case to the lower court.

  • April 19, 2024

    Polsinelli Adds Shareholder To Tax Credit Practice In Dallas

    An attorney who spent more than a decade developing a niche practice specializing in tax credit financing has moved her practice to Polsinelli PC's Dallas office after five years at Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr PC.

  • April 19, 2024

    India Signs Record Amount Of Advance Pricing Agreements

    India's Central Board of Direct Taxes entered into a record 125 advance pricing agreements with Indian taxpayers in fiscal year 2023-24, a 31% increase compared with the previous year, the authority said.

  • April 19, 2024

    Taxation With Representation: Kirkland, Cleary, O'Melveny

    In this week's Taxation With Representation, Resideo Technologies Inc. announced plans to buy Snap One Holdings Corp., APi Group said it bought an elevator maintenance company, Prysmian said it agreed to purchase Encore Wire, and Sayari said it closed on an investment from TPG.

  • April 19, 2024

    Questions Loom Over China's Pillar 2 Participation

    Practical and political problems surrounding the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's 15% global minimum corporate tax raise questions about how China and its biggest companies could undermine that regime.

  • April 19, 2024

    EU Official Pushes Automatic Exchange Of Ownership Data

    The automatic exchange of companies' beneficial ownership information would be a powerful tool for tax authorities and should be a future goal for governments, a senior European Union tax official said Friday. 

  • April 18, 2024

    Estonian Tax System's Ease Key To Success, Bank Head Says

    The tax system in Estonia — ranked the top country for international tax competitiveness by the Tax Foundation — is fair and easy to administer, which is key to the country's tax administration successes, the governor of the Bank of Estonia said Thursday.

  • April 18, 2024

    AbbVie Can't Get Deduction For $1.6B Merger Fee, IRS Says

    The IRS defended its denial of AbbVie's claimed deduction for a $1.6 billion payment to a biotechnology company over their failed merger, telling the U.S. Tax Court that the pharmaceutical giant is misconstruing an underlying statute to challenge the agency's decision.

  • April 18, 2024

    IRS Updates Rates For Foreign Insurance Company Equations

    The Internal Revenue Service published updated domestic asset/liability and yields percentages Thursday that foreign life insurance companies as well as foreign property and liability insurance companies need to compute their minimum effectively connected net investment income for tax years starting in 2023.

  • April 18, 2024

    Pawn Shop Owes VAT On Auction Sales, EU Court Says

    A Portuguese pawn shop must pay value-added taxes of €308,000 ($327,000) from sales commissions of auctioned items because the auction is not part of the exempt loan, the Court of Justice of the European Union said Thursday.

  • April 18, 2024

    EU Split Stops Move Toward Corporate Tax Harmonization

    A group of smaller European Union countries stopped a move toward harmonization of national corporate taxes when EU leaders met Thursday to discuss ways to promote investments in European businesses.

  • April 18, 2024

    $32B More In Tax Yielded In Fiscal '23 Closed Audits, IRS Says

    The Internal Revenue Service closed nearly 583,000 tax return audits in fiscal year 2023, resulting in $31.9 billion of recommended additional tax after examination, the agency said Thursday in its annual data book.     

Expert Analysis

  • What Large Language Models Mean For Document Review

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    Courts often subject parties using technology assisted review to greater scrutiny than parties conducting linear, manual document review, so parties using large language models for document review should expect even more attention, along with a corresponding need for quality control and validation, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • Participating In Living History Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My role as a baron in a living history group, and my work as volunteer corporate counsel for a book series fan association, has provided me several opportunities to practice in unexpected areas of law — opening doors to experiences that have nurtured invaluable personal and professional skills, says Matthew Parker at the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.

  • Private Equity Owners Can Remedy Law Firms' Agency Issues

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    Nonlawyer, private-equity ownership of law firms can benefit shareholders and others vulnerable to governance issues such as disparate interests, and can in turn help resolve agency problems, says Michael Di Gennaro at The Law Practice Exchange.

  • How Taxpayers Can Prep As Justices Weigh Repatriation Tax

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    The U.S. Supreme Court might strike down the 2017 federal tax overhaul's corporate repatriation tax in Moore v. U.S., so taxpayers should file protective tax refund claims before the case is decided and repatriate previously taxed earnings that could become entangled in dubious potential Section 965 refunds, say Jenny Austin and Gary Wilcox at Mayer Brown.

  • OFAC Designation Prosecutions Are Constitutionally Suspect

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    Criminal prosecutions based on the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s sanctions-related listing decisions — made with nearly unfettered discretion through an opaque process — present several constitutional issues, so it is imperative that courts recognize additional rights of review, say Solomon Shinerock and Annika Conrad at Lewis Baach.

  • How The OECD Global Tax Proposal Could Affect M&A

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    Following agreement on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Pillar Two proposal to introduce a global minimum tax, domestic implementation is expected to have a significant impact on international M&A transactions, with financial modeling, deal structuring, risk allocation and joint venture arrangements likely to be affected, say lawyers at Freshfields.

  • UK Shares-Tax Proposals Offer Long-Awaited Modernization

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    The U.K. government's recent consultation on the introduction of a new tax on transactions in securities raises detailed legal and practical issues, but the prospect of a single digital stamp tax offering both streamlined legislation and administration will be welcomed, say Zoë Arnautov and Mark Sheiham at Simmons & Simmons.

  • IRS Foreign Tax Credit Pause Is Welcome Course Correction

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    A recent IRS notice temporarily suspending application of 2022 foreign tax credit regulations provides wanted relief for the many U.S. multinational companies and other taxpayers that otherwise face the risk of significant double taxation in their international operations, say attorneys at Mayer Brown.

  • IRS Criminal Probe Spells Uncertainty For Malta Pension Plans

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    The IRS’ recent scrutiny of Malta pension plan arrangements — and its unusual issuance of criminal administrative summonses — confirms that it views many of these plans as illegal tax evasion schemes, and the road ahead will not be smooth and steady for anyone involved, say attorneys at Kostelanetz.

  • IRS Announcement Will Aid Cos. In Buyback Tax Planning

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    Recent IRS transitional guidance regarding current requirements for reporting and payment of the stock repurchase excise tax will help corporate taxpayers make decisions about records retention and establishing reserves for future tax payments, say Xenia Garofalo and Kyle Colonna at Eversheds Sutherland.

  • Flawed Analysis Supports Common Law Tax Deficiency Ruling

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    The Colorado federal district court’s recent decision in Liberty Global, holding that the U.S. Department of Justice may assert a common law tax claim without the notice of tax deficiency required by the Internal Revenue Code, relies on a contorted reading of the statute and irrelevant case law, say Loren Opper and Christie Galinski at Miller Canfield.

  • Review Of Repatriation Tax Sets Justices On Slippery Slope

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to review the constitutionality of the repatriation tax in Moore v. U.S. has implications for many tax rules involving unrealized amounts and could leave the court on the brink of invalidating large swaths of the Internal Revenue Code, say attorneys at Eversheds Sutherland.

  • What To Make Of IRS' New Advance Pricing Guidance

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    Recent guidance on the IRS' goals for its advance pricing agreement system provides helpful insight into review and decision-making procedures for advance pricing agreement requests, but it also raises questions about the IRS' objectives, say Richard Slowinski and Stefanie Kavanagh at Alston & Bird.

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