The European Commission has published the letter containing its detailed decision to approve the UK’s application to extend the enterprise management incentive (EMI) scheme. The Commission gave its approval on 15 May.
The government of the British Virgin Islands has announced a legal challenge to the provision in the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 obliging the UK government to impose publicly accessible registers of beneficial ownership on any British overseas territory failing to introduce such
The new Protocol to the UK/Uzbekistan double taxation convention, signed in January 2018, entered into force on 1 June 2018 (see https://bit.ly/2Jwhh3n).
In the UK, this is effective:
Liberia signed the OECD’s ‘Multilateral convention on mutual administrative assistance in tax matters’ on 11 June. In May, China extended the territorial scope of the convention to the Hong Kong and Macau special administrative regions, where it will enter into force on 1 September 2018.
As part of the EU budget for 2021 to 2027, the European Commission has published legislative proposals for a budget of €950m for the EU customs programme (up from €523m) and €270m for the Fiscalis programme (up from €223m), to upgrade IT systems and improve cooperation against tax fraud, evasion
ECOFIN has adopted amendments to the administrative cooperation directive, introducing new disclosure and reporting rules for tax intermediaries involved in designing and promoting aggressive cross-border tax planning schemes.
The Council of the EU has moved the Bahamas and Saint Kitts & Nevis to the lower-risk annex II of the EU’s list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions. This reflects commitments made by both jurisdictions at a high political level in March to remedy EU concerns.
The Council of the EU has reached agreement on an updated tax good governance provision for inclusion in relevant agreements between EU member states and third countries.
The updated provision, which replaces the version adopted in May 2008, reads:
The OECD has released the first peer reviews of the country by country (CBC) reporting initiative, focusing mainly on the domestic legal and administrative framework.
The review covered 95 jurisdictions. As of 12 January, the key findings were:
Paraguay has become the 119th signatory to the ‘Multilateral convention on mutual administrative assistance in tax matters’.