Through the authority of the Minister of Finance, Government of Indonesia has issued regulations to taxing crypto assets transactions. Although the legal position is still ambiguous, the Minister of Finance chose to go one step further by issuing tax regulations on crypto-asset transactions by applying value added tax (VAT) and withholding tax (WHT) starting in April 2022.
Late 2021, Finland implemented a regulation concerning taxation of reverse hybrid arrangements included in article 9a of ATAD2 directive (Council directive (EU) 2017/952 amending Directive 2016/1164). The new rules have been implemented in Section 8a of the Finnish act on taxation of cross-border hybrid arrangements (Hybrid Act) and have been applied for fiscal year 2022 onwards.
The tax regimes of the six countries—the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Kuwait, the Sultanate of Oman, the State of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates—that make up the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (better known as the GCC) are evolving and changing rapidly.
Alex M. Parker, Capitol Counsel LLC, discusses why last year’s OECD-G20 global minimum tax agreement has revealed a scope much broader than most anticipated; provisions of the agreement, revealed in technical commentary released by the OECD in the past months, could affect everything from green energy incentives to affordable housing credits in the U.S.
Luca Tortorella and Michele Targa, Gatti Pavesi Bianchi Ludovici, discuss the European Court of Justice Advocate General’s April 5 opinion in case C-694/20 that the provisions of DAC6 did not infringe on the right to a fair trial when the name of the intermediary claiming the privilege was not disclosed to tax authorities.
Adrian ȚAGA, Romania’s National Tax Agency, discusses the April 7 European Court of Justice ruling in case C-333/20 Berlin Chemie A. Menarini that addresses whether in the underlying case the German shareholder has a permanent establishment for VAT purposes in the country of its Romanian subsidiary.
Kyle Pomerleau, American Enterprise Institute, warns that while the Biden Administration’s recently released 2023 budget—which includes additional reforms to the tax treatment of multinational corporations—is intended to further align the U.S. tax code with the OECD’s Pillar Two model rules and enhance the competitiveness of U.S. multinational corporations, they actually could leave U.S. companies at a competitive disadvantage.
Annemarie Wilmore, Johnson Winter & Slattery, discusses the latest developments in the Australian case of Singapore Telecom Australia Investments Pty Ltd v Commissioner of Taxation when the Australian Federal Court issued a further decision on March 22, including its consideration of whether consequential adjustments to the transfer pricing benefit should be made to take into account carryforward losses.
Allen Tobin, CrossBorder Solutions, discusses the U.S. House of Representatives’ April 1 passage of legislation to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level; the legalization of cannabis has been a hot topic politically, and, if passed in the U.S. Senate, its potential impact on tax issues will be significant—especially for the research and development tax credit.
Susi Baerentzen, Carlsberg Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, analyzes the High Court of Eastern Denmark’s March 28 ruling that dealt another harsh blow to the Danish Ministry of Taxation in the largest-ever transfer pricing case in Danish history regarding a USD 1.5 billion increase of taxable income for the oil business previously owned by A.P. Møller Maersk (now by Total Energies EP).
Dr. Monika Laskowska, Warsaw School of Economics, discusses the Polish Ministry of Finance’s December 2021 binding interpretation of the concept of a controlled transaction for transfer pricing purposes; it has created a few concerns regarding its interpretation since it was first introduced into Polish tax law in 2019.
Aldo Engels, Loyens & Loeff, discusses the Belgian government’s recent decision to increase the effectiveness of transfer pricing audits of MNEs—followed by a new wave of transfer pricing audits initiated in the beginning of 2022—and provides an overview of recent trends in the Belgian transfer pricing audit practice.
Allan Lanthier, a former advisor to the Canadian government, argues that when EU finance ministers next meet on April 5, they should abandon Pillar Two, which, he says, is a deeply flawed initiative that includes major changes on which countries had never previously agreed, including a new Domestic Minimum Top-Up tax and a significant rewrite of the Undertaxed Payment Rule.
Giuliana Polacco and Annarita De Carne, Studio Legale Bird & Bird, discuss two significant developments the Italian Revenue Agency made this month to its cooperative compliance regime, a forum allowing a taxpayer to prevent tax audits and to agree in advance with tax authorities regarding the tax treatment of specific uncertain transactions.
Iris Burgstaller and Fanni Deak, TPA Austria, discuss recent changes to the Austria-United Arab Emirates income tax treaty to implement the OECD standards on base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS); after the exchange of the instruments of ratification, the amendments will be applicable for tax years after December 31, 2022.
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