In view of my recent comment on Delaware LLCs the following, issued yesterday, is significant:
Today Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), and Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Chairman, Ranking Minority Member, and Member of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, introduced the Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act to help law enforcement […]
For those who don’t know today is UK budget day. This is what I want to hear and might hope for:
1) A commitment to introduce a general anti-avoidance principle to tackle tax avoidance;
2) A UK commitment to extending the EU Savings Tax Directive to companies and trusts and an undertaking to make sure our Crown […]
Accountancy Age report that:
Dave Hartnett, acting chairman of HM Revenue & Customs, has approached every FTSE 100 finance director, offering a lighter scrutiny of their taxes - if they agree to higher levels of disclosure and co-operation.
That’s good.
That’s consistent with the TJN Code of Conduct for Taxation.
And it would help stop further deterioration in the […]
The FT has reported on Grant Thornton’s latest research on corporate governnance code compliance in the FTSE 350. The results are not encouraging. As they note:
[O]f the 125 companies claiming full compliance, only 11 had fulfilled the disclosure requirements of the code.
That means 35% claim compliance, but only 3.1% succeed.
Worse, as the also note:
[T]he number […]
Prem Sikka hits the issue of tackling the tax gap, and the consequences for recession in the Guardian this morning. As he says:
With gloomy forecasts for the economy, the government needs to undertake radical tax cuts to avert a recession, not the ones demanded by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and the mega-rich, but […]
KPMG have issued a press release on the OECD meeting in South Africa saying:
An OECD study into the role that tax advisers play in the use of tax minimisation techniques by large companies has recommended that governments should attempt to reduce the demand for aggressive tax planning by encouraging a wider tripartite relationship between revenue […]
More from the OECD tax conference in South Africa:
The OECD’s Deputy Secretary General, Pierre Carlo Padoan, says capital flight to tax havens is harming the continent’s development.
He says while Africa is beginning to fulfil its economic potential, better tax revenues are needed to finance the infrastructure and the skills needed for a vibrant economy.
Read the […]
The OECD is to issue its report on the relationship between tax authorities and advisers today. As Accountancy Age reports:
The broad conclusions of the report, commissioned by the OECD, are expected to be that tax advisers to facilitate avoidance in some cases, but that the ultimate responsibility for tax planning lies with the taxpayer.
Maybe, but […]
Accountancy Age has reported that the Government is to produce a taxpayer’s charter.
I would like to think that it will look like this:
A Code of Conduct for Taxation
Objective
This Code of Conduct relates to the payment of taxes due to a State or other appropriate authority designated by it.
Scope
This Code applies to:
1. Governments and their agencies […]
In December the Guardian reported that:
Gordon Brown plans to harness at least 20 of the world’s biggest multinational companies, including Google and Vodafone, to tackle a “development emergency” in the world’s poorest countries and put the international community back on course to achieve seven UN development goals by 2015.
As a UN report released today shows […]
