The judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeal (“SCA”), which established certain guidelines and principles regarding the claiming of input tax for value added tax (“VAT”) purposes in the Commissioner for South African Revenue Services v De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd (503/11) (1 June 2012) case may have far-reaching consequences for the private equity and venture capital industry ...
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO (DRC): Refund of input VAT credit suspendedIn terms of the DRC value added tax (“VAT”) legislation, export businesses, companies ceasing their activities, oil and mining companies (during the exploration phase) and companies making significant investments are entitled to request input VAT credit refunds ...
In terms of the South African controlled foreign company ("CFC") legislation contained in section 9D of the Income Tax Act, 58 of 1962 (the "Act"), where South African residents directly or indirectly hold more than 50% of the total participation rights (essentially, the right to participate in the benefits of the rights attaching to a share) in a foreign company, a proportional amount of the “net income” of that foreign company (as a CFC) will be included in the income of those residents ...
Is the current international tax focus on base erosion and profit shifting (“BEPS”) relevant for tax-exempt pension funds? In particular, should the trustees and/or administrators of pension funds take note of the finalisation by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) of the 15 point action plan to address BEPS? Both of these questions should be answered “yes” by South African pension funds that invest outside of the country ...
With tax litigation becoming more prevalent in recent years, taxpayers are now faced with new issues.One such issue is: when and to what extent will documents bearing an electronic signature be acceptable under the relevant tax legislation?In this regard, section 255(2) of the Tax Administration Act No ...
On 15 April 2016, the Minister of Mineral Resources published the draft Reviewed Broad Based Black-Economic Empowerment Charter for the South African Mining and Minerals Industry 2016 (“the draft reviewed Mining Charter”) for public comment, addressing among other issues, the targets to be met by the mining industry in respect of the housing and living conditions of mine workers ...
The Panama Papers represent a leak of some 11.5 million files from a Panamanian based advisory firm, Mossack Fonseca. The leak provided information on offshore bank accounts and offshore trusts based in Panama, the British Virgin Islands and the Seychelles, among other jurisdictions. Many politicians and celebrities have been named, including the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, who is perhaps the highest profile individual named in this leak ...
On May 11, 2016, OSHA issued a final rule, which is slated to go into effect January 1, 2017. This requires certain employers to electronically submit information regarding workplace injuries and illnesses. As with any new rule-making by OSHA, presumably legal challenges to the rule are on the way. Nonetheless, here are the relevant new provisions. Read the full alert ...
Slovenia has amended the Financial Operations, Insolvency Proceedings and Compulsory Dissolution Act (ZFPPIPP or the Insolvency Act) again, following amendments in 2013, amending preventive restructuring, simplified compulsory settlement and personal bankruptcy proceedings. Amendments to the Insolvency Act, which were adopted by the National Assembly on 31 March 2016, will come into force on 26 April 2016 ...
Although a trust is a valuable financial, tax and estate planning tool, does it allow one to ?shelter? some assets from the public order rules which apply in the context of family law?What is a trust?A trust is a legal disposition which allows a person to transfer the ownership of one or more of his or her assets to a trust for the trust to administer such assets for the benefit of one or more beneficiaries ...
The South African Revenue Service (“SARS”) has introduced a new Tax Compliance Status System (“TCS”) from 18 April 2016 in an effort to improve compliance and to make it easier for taxpayers to manage their tax affairs. The Tax Compliance Status System is a holistic view of the tax compliance level across all registered tax types ...
In a recent case, the Labour Court needed to consider the interplay between section 136 of the Companies Act, 2008 and section 189 of the Labour Relations Act, 1995 (“the LRA”). The latter section enables an employer to terminate an employee’s employment based on operational requirements. Section 136(1)(a) of the Companies Act provides that, during business rescue proceedings, employees will continue to be employed by the employer on the existing terms and conditions of employment ...
The South African Revenue Service (“SARS”) is, in accordance with section 3(2)(j) of the Tax Administration Act, 28 of 2011 (the “TAA”), responsible for giving effect to the Country-by-Country Reporting Standard for Multinational Enterprises (the “CbC Reporting Standard”) which was developed under the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (“OECD’s“) base erosion and profit shifting (“BEPS”) Action Plan 13 – “Re-examine Transfer Pricing Documentation” ...
On 22 March 2016, the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation (“OECD”) released a standardised electronic format to facilitate the consistent and uniform preparation, filing and exchange of Country-by-Country (“CbC”) reports. The CbC reports will be transmitted between revenue authorities in accordance with the Extensible Markup Language Schema (“XML Schema”),which is a data structure for electronically holding and transmitting information ...
In the matter of ABC (Pty) Ltd v Commissioner for the South African Revenue Service (ITC 0038/2015) (“ABC case”), the Tax Court had to consider whether the taxpayer discharged the onus to prove that "exceptional circumstances" existed for an extension of the period allowed for the taxpayer to object to an assessment, in terms of section 104 of the Tax Administration Act, 28 of 2011 (“TAA”) ...
In South Africa, the determination of whether a foreign entity is a company or partnership is an important one, as it subsequently determines the applicable tax treatment of the foreign entity. The issue of whether foreign entities should be recognised as foreign companies or foreign partnerships in South Africa was recently brought into the spotlight once again by the Taxation Laws Amendment Act No. 25 of 2015 (the “2015 Amendment Act”) ...
On 13 April 2016, the South African Revenue Service (“SARS”) issued Binding Private Ruling 228 (“BPR 228”), which dealt with the issue whereby a project company becomes an operating company for the purpose of s8EA of the Income Tax Act, No 58 of 1962 (“ITA 1962”). This question is an important one in the context of financing the activities of renewable energy project companies but its relevance stretches further to many other infrastructure-related project companies ...
On 17 March 2016, the South African Revenue Service (“SARS”) issued an interesting binding private ruling (“BPR 227”) concerning a share subscription transaction which was followed by two share buyback transactions.BPR 227 deals with an area that National Treasury and SARS have identified as a problem, namely where a shareholder disposes of its shares through means of a share buyback as opposed to selling the shares outright to a third party ...
Poland did not manage to implement the EU’s new procurement directives on schedule, but contracting authorities are required to conduct proceedings in full compliance with EU law. “In Principle”: The deadline for implementation of the new procurement directives into national law passed in April, but the old act is still in force in Poland ...
Karanović & Nikolić recently organised a workshop in cooperation with the Faculty of Law, under the title of "Managing Emotions in Labor Disputes – More than Law", as part of the Trial Simulation and Case Studies course ...
Another piece of news related to our competition team in Serbia are the recent signings of a Memorandum of Understanding and Agreement of Cooperation in the field of forensics between the Commission for the Protection of Competition and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) ...
The Philippines section of The Tax Disputes and Litigation Review 4th Edition contains information on commencing disputes, including national and local taxes; courts and tribunals; penalties and remedies; tax claims, including recovering overpaid taxes, challenging administrative decisions, and claimants; costs; alternative dispute resolution; anti-avoidance; double taxation treaties; areas of focus; and outlook and conclusions. The section was contributed by SyCipLaw partner Carina C ...
Obesity was not a disabilityThe judgment in the obesity case - which has caused quite a stir both in Denmark and the rest of the world - has finally been delivered.The case involved a Danish childminder who for more than 15 years had worked for a municipalitywhere he had provided childcare services in his own home. On 22 November 2010, the childminder was dismissed due to a decreased number of children in the municipality ...
According to the Danish Supreme Court's judgment of 17 March 2016, an employer's summary dismissal of an employee was justified due to the employee's use of his company mobile phone for the purchase of train tickets by means of an app, after which the expense was paid over the phone bill. The case involved an employee who - by virtue of his position as system developer - had been provided with a company mobile phone ...
This question was addressed by the Danish Board of Equal Treatment in its decision of 3 March 2016. The Board found that a provision in the staff manual - stipulating the termination of the employment relationship when the employee had reached the age of 70 - could not, as a matter of course, be considered to form part of the specific employment relationship ...
