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© European Union 2014 The European Commission is promoting its Tax Transparency Package, published March 18, as a tool for "healthier" tax competition as well as for helping member states identify abusive tax practices. The Package is part of the Commission's strategy "to make corporation taxation fairer and more efficient within the Single Market". As a sign of this wider approach, Valdis Dombrovskis, the Commission vice-president responsible for the euro and social dialogue, accompanied Pierre Moscovici, the commissioner for economic and financial affairs, taxation and customs, at the launch of the document.

Achim Pross, head of the International Cooperation and Tax Administration division at the OECD, and architect of the new automatic exchange of information standard and the multilateral competent authority agreement (MCAA), which 52 jurisdictions have signed so far, discusses the progress made in 2014 and looks at opportunities and challenges ahead.

If political instability, leadership changes, and tightened tax laws weren't strenuous enough, plummeting oil prices in the latter half of 2014 left many governments and corporations exasperated, questioning how low prices could conceivably go. Meredith McBride analyses how authorities around the world have responded with sectoral tax changes.

The potential Chinese tax implications of the provision of cross-border services into China are as numerous as they are confusing. Scott Heidecke and Flora Luo of Nexia International member firm Nexia TS (Shanghai) discuss some of the practical considerations.

ABBL: Luxembourg is fully committed to the fight against tax fraud and tax evasion Luxembourg's compliance with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) moved a step closer on March 6 after the government adopted draft legislation to ratify its bilateral intergovernmental agreement with the US.

South Korea is targeting global online retailers Korea is targeting global online retailers in its expanded VAT legislation, which will tax the non-resident distributors of digital content to Korea customers. From July 1 2015 electronic service providers will be charged 10% VAT on all sales made to Korean consumers, regardless of whether they have a Korean presence.

Eddie Ahn March saw the release of draft legislation for the long awaited reforms to the Investment Manager Regime (IMR) and Offshore Banking Unit (OBU) concessions, as well as further progress on transfer pricing and exchange of tax information. On March 12, the Australian Government released the draft legislation for the third stage of the IMR reforms. These reforms remove tax impediments to investing in Australia in order to attract foreign investment and promote the use of Australian fund managers. The amendments in the draft legislation broaden the income tax and capital gains tax (CGT) exemptions under the IMR concessions to cover investments in Australian assets (excluding real property) that are of a portfolio nature. The changes also broaden the 'widely held' test to be more consistent with and expand on the corresponding test in the Australian managed investment trust provisions. Qualifying foreign entities will be eligible for the IMR concession if they directly invest in Australia or invest via an independent Australian fund manager.

The new EU legislation changing the place of supply of business-to-consumer (B2C) electronic services, telecommunications and broadcasting to the country of the consumer has been the VAT story of the year. Joe Stanley-Smith speaks to Dermot Donegan, head of VAT policy at the Irish tax authority (Revenue), about how the plans were finalised during the Irish presidency of the EU Council, his thoughts around their implementation and the possibility of expanding the mini one-stop shop (MOSS) to cover goods and other services.

Matthew Gilleard talks with Pascale Colin, group tax manager at EFG Bank, about the role of the tax director, her journey in getting there, and operating successfully in a rapidly-evolving Swiss, European and global tax environment

Dajana Topic The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Srpska (RS) held its 191st regular session on December 22 2014. During this session, in accordance with constitutional and legal frameworks, decisions were made on the compliance of laws and other legal acts with the constitution and laws of RS. The Constitutional Court has ruled that certain regulations of the special methods of debt payment, which stipulate that the tax debt can be settled by payment of the entire amount of the principal debt in cash with the write-off of interest, are not constitutional, as well as converting the tax debt into equity in the assets of the tax debtor.