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Phil Morrison McDermott, Will & Emery has hired an international tax practitioner to join its tax team in Washington, DC. Phil Morrison, a former senior international tax official at the US Treasury Department, has joined the firm as counsel in its US and international tax practice group. He recently left a role as a principal at Deloitte's US tax practice, where he was responsible for international tax quality control.

Kelly Stricklin-Coutinho Kelly Stricklin-Coutinho, formerly of PwC Legal, has joined Thirty Nine Essex Street barristers' chambers in London. Stricklin-Coutinho has advised on high value tax enquiries for multinationals dealing with cross-border and domestic issues. Her administrative and judicial tax disputes experience includes cases at every level from the tax tribunal to the European Court of Justice.

Philip Baker Philip Baker, Patrick Way, Patrick Soares and Imran Afzal launched Field Court Tax Chambers in August after their previous set, Gray's Inn Tax Chambers, decided to leave the Inns of Court. Between them, the four cover a wide range of topics in their practices, for companies, private clients and the tax authorities, including property taxation, VAT, trusts and offshore tax, international tax, tax and human rights, inheritance tax, capital gains, stamp duty and stamp duty land tax. They are all well-known speakers, lecturers and writers on tax issues.

The phrase tax haven has long conjured images of letterbox companies metres away from the golden sands and deep blue seas of Bermuda’s beaches. But is that moniker appropriate or is the stereotype shifting as European jurisdictions such as Denmark and the UK’s City of London are being stamped with the tax haven label following recent reform measures? Matthew Gilleard looks at tax competition in specific country contexts to see whether the face of tax havens is changing.

Read this month's special features on Asia and tax technology.

Sandra Benedetto

Differing tax treaty definitions, or the lack of them, mean that the term ‘operation of ships/aircrafts in international traffic’ has caused controversy for India’s taxpayers, explain Ajit Kumar Jain, Kanchana Ramamurthi and Mehul Jain of BMR & Associates.

Chris Walsh and Bernadette Pinamont of Vertex look at the rise of public, non-regulatory scrutiny of multinational tax affairs, and outline best practices for in-house tax teams to deal with such scrutiny.

Lam Kok Shang and Gan Hwee Leng of KPMG preview the introduction of goods and services tax (GST) in Malaysia from April 1 2015, comparing it with the equivalent regime in Singapore and explaining what taxpayers must do to prepare for the incoming changes.

Dajana Topic At the beginning of 2014, the price of cigarettes in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) increased due to the Decision on the rate of specific excise duty and the overall minimum excise duty on cigarettes. Six months later, in June 2014, the Bosnian parliament adopted another set of amendments to the Law on Excise, which entered into force in July 2014 and is applicable as of August 1 2014. This time, the basic changes affect the excise duty on cigarettes, with the overall excise duty being increased from BAM 126 (€65) to BAM 176 (€90) per 1,000 cigarettes.