Search results for

Alexander Linn Thorsten Braun Germany's Federal Tax Court (BFH) has asked the German Ministry of Finance to join a pending case on the intra-group exception to the German real estate transfer tax (RETT) (case ref. II R 62/14). One of the issues raised by the BFH relates to the question of whether or not the intra-group exception has been notified to the European Commission as potential state aid.

Fred Lo, vice president and global head of tax at Yanfeng Global Automotive Interiors, a joint venture between the automotive interiors businesses of Johnson Controls and Shanghai Motors, analyses recent tax treaty trends, focusing on mismatches in treaty terms and why some countries are more equal than others.

Álvaro Pereira Ruben Gottberg According to the recently enacted Law 13.202/15, the social contribution on net income (CSLL, by its Portuguese acronym) falls under the scope of Brazilian double tax treaties (DTTs).

Nancy Diep Canada's thin-capitalisation rules operate to deny all or part of an interest expense in Canada for a taxation year if the amount of the interest-bearing debt owing by a borrower to specified non-residents (that is, persons who hold – or do not deal at arm's-length with persons that hold – 25% or more of the applicable votes or value of the borrower) exceeds the borrower's equity by more than a 1.5:1 ratio. Any excess interest that is not deductible for a taxation year is also treated as a deemed dividend subject to Canadian withholding tax.

Sandra Benedetto Back Santiago López Lugo As we have reported in previous updates, Chile is going through substantial changes in its tax system. In September 2014, the Chilean government enacted Law 20,780 introducing major modifications to the core of the tax system, affecting its foundation in a significant way (the 2014 tax reform). 2015 was the year in which the Chilean IRS focused its efforts on issuing administrative regulations on the different topics covered by the tax reform, to provide taxpayers guidelines on how the tax reform would be implemented.

Khoonming Ho Lewis Lu On October 30 2015 China's Ministry of Finance (MoF) and State Administration of Taxation jointly issued Circular Caishui [2015] 118 (Circular 118) which introduces value added tax (VAT) zero-rating for certain exported services, to replace the existing VAT exemption treatment. VAT zero-rating means that a taxpayer not only does not pay VAT on the services it performs, but is also entitled to full input VAT credits (and if applicable, refunds) for the expenses it incurs which relate to providing those services.

Anna Pushkaryova On April 23 2015 Georgia and Belarus signed an agreement on avoidance of double taxation, prevention of evasion of income and capital taxes (DTT). The DTT applies to profit tax, income tax and property tax in Georgia and the tax on income, tax on profits, income tax on individuals and tax on immovable property in Belarus.

Konstantina Kalakou Recent developments clearly show that the topic of permanent establishment (PE) is high on the Greek tax agenda. As per the practice followed to date by the Greek tax authorities, multinational entities that have a presence in Greece (through a subsidiary) do not often find themselves under the audit microscope provided that the Greek subsidiary has taxable revenues (commonly arising from services that the latter provides to other Group entities). On the other hand, commissionaire structures were scrutinised with the absence of contractual or negotiation authority on behalf of the agent, giving leeway for taxpayers. To this end, a ruling of the Court of Appeal has stated that a Greek agent that has been appointed only for promotion services of the foreign UK entity cannot trigger a PE.

Freddy Karyadi Chaterine Tanuwijaya The Indonesian Ministry of Finance has revealed that Indonesia's net tax revenue for 2015 was only IDR1,055 trillion, about 81.5% of the target set out in the 2015 Budget. Although the figure is an all-time high, it still represents a shortfall compared with budgetary projections.

Paweł Szymański Effective from February 1 2016, Poland is introducing a new law covering a 'financial institutions tax' (FIT) that will be charged on certain kinds of assets of financial institutions operating in Poland.