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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
One of the issues an employer is obliged to consult on during a potential retrenchment process is the selection criteria to be applied when determining which employees will be dismissed and which will be retained. In doing so, the employer should aim to reach agreement with the other consulting party/parties on what the selection criteria should be ...
The Paris Agreement (the “Agreement”) was signed on Friday, 22 April 2016 in New York. This adds further impetus to the international response to climate change and, for the local economy, it re-emphasises the importance of South Africa’s national greenhouse gas mitigation actions, including the carbon tax ...
Dear All,This is to inform you that the Federal Law no. 88-FZ “On amendments to articles 24 and 40.1 of Federal Law “About Banks and Bank Activity” and to the Federal Law “On voluntary declaration of assets and bank accounts/deposits by individuals and on introducing amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation” (further – the “Law”) was adopted on April 05, 2016 ...
Dear All,This is to inform you that the Federal Law no. 88-FZ “On amendments to articles 24 and 40.1 of Federal Law “About Banks and Bank Activity” and to the Federal Law “On voluntary declaration of assets and bank accounts/deposits by individuals and on introducing amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation” (further – the “Law”) was adopted on April 05, 2016 ...
Dear All,We would like to inform you that the President of the Russian Federation ordered to abolish the Federal Migration Service (hereinafter the “FMS”). Decision is formalized by the Executive Order “On Improving State Administration in Exercising Control over the Circulation of Narcotic Substances, Psychotropic Substances and their Precursors, and in the Sphere of Migration” No. 156 dated April 5, 2016 (hereinafter the “Executive Order”) ...
In December 2015, the Court of Appeal of Quebec in Éthier v. Compagnie de chemins de fer nationaux du Canada1 confirmed that section 36 of the Act Respecting Occupational Health and Safety (?AROHS?)2does not apply to federal undertakings and that, accordingly, a worker who is pregnant or breastfeeding and who is on preventive withdrawal in accordance with the Canada Labour Code (?CLC?)3is not entitled to receive an income replacement indemnity ...
Dear All, Recently we have informed you on the general prohibition to use lease of personnel in Russia introduced by the Law No.116-FZ "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation" which came into force as of January 1, 2016. After it was adopted there was a period of uncertainty when it was not clear whether secondment contracts concluded before 2016 shall be terminated or not ...
On January 29th, 2016, the Supreme Court issued a ruling (hereinafter the “Ruling”), that changed the criteria regarding the requirements that trigger the entitlement to the statutory benefit known as “full week” (semana corrida) which applies to employees who are remunerated based on a fixed salary and a variable compensation. 1.- Criteria before the Ruling The full week benefit was originally applicable to employees remunerated exclusively on a daily basis or by piecework ...
