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Maria Sarantopoulou It is no accident that Cyprus is a well-known and respected ship management centre. The reasons for Cyprus's success are the numerous competitive advantages and opportunities of the Cypriot merchant shipping legislation and, in particular, the even more advantageous tax regime. These, coupled with a strategic geographic location, have been instrumental in the remarkable growth of the Cyprus Shipping Registry.

The controversial issue of applicability of MAT to both FIIs/FPIs may finally be resolved.

Alexander Linn

Greg Lockhart

Samantha Schmitz-Merle On August 5 2015, a draft law was presented to Parliament, which implements some recent amendments to the EU Parent-Subsidiary Directive (PSD) into Luxembourg law. The amendments aim to stop situations of double non-taxation created by the use of certain hybrid instruments and to incorporate a general anti-abuse rule (GAAR) into the EU Parent-Subsidiary regime. The amendments will apply to dividend income allocated after December 31 2015. Beginning in 2016, dividends received by a Luxembourg company from another EU undertaking within the meaning of the EU PSD will no longer benefit from the corporate income tax (CIT) exemption provided by article 166 Income Tax Law (ITL) and from the municipal business tax (MBT) exemption provided by paragraph 9 of the MBT Law if the dividends are tax deductible in the other EU member state.

Elena Kostovska In 2009, as an anti-crisis measure, the FYR Macedonian Government started to apply the preferential VAT rate to the first sale of residential buildings. Initially planned to be in force until the end of 2011, the application was extended until the end of 2015. In July 2015, the government extended it once again, this time for a period of three more years. The Macedonian VAT regime recognises a standard rate of 18% and a preferential rate of 5%. The preferential rate is applicable to the supply of a wide range of goods and services including, among others, food products, medicine, publications, food for livestock, drinking water and agricultural machines.

The Saudi Arabian Department of Zakat and Income Tax (DZIT) has issued internal guidelines to all its branches and divisions for processing withholding tax (WHT) refund claims for non-residents.

Donald Vella

Shaun Connolly New Zealand's Government has released a discussion document inviting submissions on proposed changes to the GST treatment of cross-border supplies of services and intangibles. The proposed new rules, which are broadly aligned with OECD draft guidelines on the same topic, would require offshore suppliers to register and account for GST when they supply services and intangibles to New Zealand-resident consumers. The document considers both 'on-the-spot' services, which are typically consumed at the same time and location as they are physically performed, and 'remote' services, which are typically consumed in a different location to where they are physically performed. In the case of on-the-spot services, the existing GST rules are generally considered to achieve the right result, because services performed in New Zealand are subject to GST, whereas services performed outside New Zealand generally are not.

Ivana Blagojevic Amendments to the Serbian Excise Duties Act were published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia No 55/2015 on June 24 2015. The reasons for the adoption of the amendments are predominantly: