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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Karanović & Nikolić is pleased to announce the election of one of its Partners, Tanja Unguran, to the position of AmCham Serbia's Chair of the Finance & Tax Committee. The Finance & Tax Committee, as one of the seven total AmCham Committees including those in charge of Combating Grey Economy, Healthcare Systems, Corporate and Business Law, Human Resources, Labour Task Force, and Real Estate Task Force, is tasked with improving the business environment via atwo-year agenda ...
The new Slovenian Public Procurement Act, the ZJN-3 ("Procurement Act"), enters into force on 1 April 2016. After a long period of dual regulation of the general and utility areas of public procurement, the new Procurement Act unifies both areas in a single act, thus invalidating the existing Public Procurement Act - ZJN-2, and the Act Regulating Public Procurement in Water, Energy, Transport and Postal Services - ZJNVETPS ...
The new Slovenian Public Procurement Act, the ZJN-3 ("Procurement Act"), enters into force on 1 April 2016. After a long period of dual regulation of the general and utility areas of public procurement, the new Procurement Act unifies both areas in a single act, thus invalidating the existing Public Procurement Act - ZJN-2, and the Act Regulating Public Procurement in Water, Energy, Transport and Postal Services - ZJNVETPS ...
Revenue legislation and administration: The Federal Constitution provides that tax shall only be levied by or under authority of federal law. This means the general body of tax law is to be found in tax statutes, supplemented by other legislative instruments such as subsidiary legislation and ministerial orders ...
Dear All,We would like to draw your attention to the following deadlines for the provision of information to the Russian tax authorities by individuals in 2016.May 4, 2016 – the final due date to submit personal income tax declaration in respect of income received in 2015 (hereinafter - the “Tax declaration”) ...
The 2016 Budget Review contained a most welcome – if cryptic – statement for venture capital companies (“VCCs”) and their investors. The statement reads as follows:“Venture capital funding for small businessesFunding remains one of the biggest challenges for small businesses. To encourage equity funders to invest in small businesses, the venture capital company regime was introduced in 2008. Currently, 31 venture capital companies are registered ...
KENYA: Amnesty granted to landlordsIn terms of the new section 123C, introduced into the Income Tax Act by Finance Act 2015 (the “Act”), the Kenya Revenue Authority (“KRA”) has granted a tax amnesty to landlords with effect from 1st January 2016.The Act provides amnesty for persons who shall willingly declare their 2014 and 2015 rent, pay the implied principal tax and file returns (original or amended) between 1 July 2015 and 30 June 2016 ...
On 15 December 2015, SARS issued a draft Public Notice that sets out the additional record-keeping requirements for transfer pricing transactions.It proposes extensive and comprehensive documentation requirements that must now be kept by taxpayers with a consolidated South African turnover of R1 billion or more ...
Budget 2016 Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan did not mention the proposed carbon tax (the “tax”) in his Budget Speech delivered on 24 February 2016. Curiously, given the emotion that has surrounded the idea of the tax since 2010, when it was first formalised in a Treasury discussion paper, commentary on the implications of the Minister’s apparent omission has been muted or non-existent ...
During October 2015, as part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”)/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (“BEPS”) Project, the OECD issued its final report in respect of Action 7 “Preventing the artificial avoidance of permanent establishment status” (“BEPS Report”) ...
In the 2016 Budget Speech delivered on 25 February 2016, the Minister of Finance announced a special voluntary disclosure programme (“Special VDP”) to encourage taxpayers to regularise violations of tax laws and exchange control regulations. This article briefly examines the benefits of the Special VDP and why potential applicants should begin preparing to submit their application in anticipation of the 1 October 2016 commencement date ...
Treaties with Luxembourg and the Republic of Korea RatifiedSerbian Parliament ratified the double tax treaty with Luxembourg which was discussed in our recently published tax alert. If Luxembourg follow suit and ratifies the treaty this year it is likely that the treaty will be applicable from 1 January 2017.Parliament also ratified the double tax treaty with the Republic of Korea, signed in January this year. The treaty is based on the standard OECD Model Tax Convention ...
