The European Commission’s 2018 ‘European semester winter package’ has identified harmful tax practices in seven EU member states. A new taxation paper also provides evidence of aggressive tax planning structures in use.
ECOFIN ministers have agreed the European Commission’s proposal for new disclosure and reporting rules for intermediaries, such as tax advisers, accountants and lawyers, involved the design and promotion of ‘aggressive’ cross-border tax planning schemes.
The OECD has published a set of model rules, which would require advisers and intermediaries to disclose information to the tax authorities about schemes designed to avoid CRS reporting obligations or hide beneficial owners.
The Irish department of finance has confirmed that the London branch of Bank of New York Mellon has been selected as preferred tenderer for the provision of escrow agency and custodian services in connection with the Apple state aid recovery process.
HMRC has published a statement of practice (SP1/2018) describing the UK’s approach to the mutual agreement procedure (MAP) under the UK’s double tax treaties, or under the EU Arbitration Convention (EUAC). This supersedes statement of practice SP1/2011.
The OECD is consulting until 19 March 2018 on the use of ‘residence by investment’ or ‘citizenship by investment’ schemes in a growing number of jurisdictions, which it believes are being used to circumvent the common reporting standard (CRS).
In particular, the consultation:
The Isle of Man government has postponed introduction of the soft drinks industry levy (SDIL) for one year until 1 April 2019.
A new VAT penalty comes into force on the Isle of Man from 1 March 2018. The penalty will apply to businesses and company officers when they knew, or should have known, that their transactions were connected with VAT fraud.
The new penalty will: