First, the good news: No estate tax on individuals who die during 2010; No generation-skipping transfer (“GST”) tax on “transfers” during 2010; Tax rate on gifts during 2010 is 35% (rather than 45%); and Congress appears less likely to take any action to retroactively change these rules ...
Last March, we informed you that the Business Corporations Act (Quebec) (the “Bill”) had been adopted by Quebec’s National Assembly and summarily described certain features of this new legislation, which will replace the Companies Act (Quebec) (the “CAQ”). In this special edition of Ratio, we provide an overview of certain aspects of the Bill that are of interest to professionals in the areas of accounting, management and finance ...
In response to the current state of the economy, Congress has passed some tax legislation amending the Internal Revenue Code (the “Code”). Although it is up for debate, some would say that Congress has not been busy enough. As we near the end of the year, many taxpayers and their advisers are going through their usual year-end tax planning checklist ...
As part of the ongoing rulemaking initiatives contemplated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Dodd-Frank Act”), the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) recently released a proposed rule defining “family offices” for purposes of an exemption from registration under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (the “Advisers Act”) ...
IT projects: It’s a team game 28 September 2010 IT projects have a knack of over-running for significant periods, requiring ‘out-of-scope’ changes half way through, and consequently going over budget. Although any project will develop and evolve over time, such problems can be minimised through sensible project management methods. It is not uncommon for IT projects to last several months, if not years, from conception to completion ...
* New Developments Concerning Insider Reporting Requirements. * Revenu Québec Bares its Teeth at Restaurant Owners* Planning for the Unavoidable: The Usefulness of Reviewing a Shareholder Agreement's Redemption Provisions in Case of Death* Speech is Silver, Silence is Golden.. ...
Getting the Deal Through - e-Commerce 2011 Getting the Deal Through published a fully revised and updated seventh edition of e-Commerce, a volume in GTDT's series of annual reports published by Law Business Research. This publication provides international analysis in key areas of law and policy for corporate counsel, cross-border legal practitioners and business people ...
Social networks: Hype and its legal consequences published in: WirtschaftsBlatt,Author: Dr. Axel Anderl, LL.m., Mag. Martina Schmid Social networking platforms like Facebook, MySpace or XING are an increasing popularity. It has never been so easy to operate social networking ...
If you are a U.S. business with international operations, here are four questions you should consider: Does your company have more than two foreign subsidiaries, at least one of which is profitable? Do you have a profitable foreign subsidiary that guarantees any U.S. debt? Are you considering the purchase of a company located outside the U.S.? Does your U.S ...
On 23 March 2010, Indonesia and Hong Kong signed a new agreement for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income (“Tax Treaty”). To date, the Tax Treaty has not yet been ratified by either country. It is expected that the Tax Treaty will come into force in early 2011 following its ratification ...
On June 28, 2010, the United States Supreme Court announced its decision on Bilski v. Kappos regarding what inventions are eligible for patent protection. The decision affirms that business methods are patentable, although the specific business methods at the center of the case are not. While stating that no single test governs the issue, the Court approved of the use of the “machine-or-transformation test” that the Federal Circuit had distilled from earlier Supreme Court cases ...
The report of the Henry Review of the Australian taxation and transfer system released on 2 May 2010, entitled 'Australia's Future Tax System' (the Report) is the 'root and branch' review into the taxation and transfer system proposed by the Australian Labor Party at the election in 2007. It contains some 138 recommendations for long-term reform of the tax and transfer system ...
Just one day after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit indicated that it would consider the current state of the inequitable conduct doctrine en banc in Therasense, Inc. v. Becton Dickinson and Co., a split panel of the Federal Circuit issued a decision in the case of Avid Identification Systems, Inc. v. Crystal Import Corp. affirming a lower court’s finding of inequitable conduct ...
After becoming the object of several infringement procedures conducted by the European Commission, Spain has been forced to amend several non-resident income tax provisions to ensure those provisions comply with the principles enshrined in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union ...
2009 Prediction: Further penetration of Software as a Service (SaaS) Australia will see a proliferation of businesses adopting SaaS in 2009. With no hardware, maintenance or upfront capital costs, SaaS will be seen as ideal for companies looking to control their costs in an uncertain economic environment. Some analysts predict that the global SaaS industry may be worth as much as A$10.7 billion during 2009 ...
The Texas franchise tax (also known as the “margin tax”) is so expansive that it can apply to private trusts administered in Texas. Every taxable entity is subject to the franchise tax, and the term “taxable entity” generally includes trusts, partnerships, limited liability companies, and corporations. If the franchise tax applies to a trust, the amount of franchise tax will typically be 0.7% of the trust's federal gross income that is apportioned to Texas (i.e ...
As we navigate the waters of these tough economic times, appraisal districts faced with massive city, school and county revenue losses caused by declining property values will most likely try to stem the tide by not voluntarily lowering taxpayers’ 2010 property values to their fair market values ...
At the end of January, the 468-page judgement of BSkyB v EDS was published, nearly eighteen months after the court hearing closed. Many, varied and worrying predictions as to the potential impact of this judgement had been made, but ultimately the judgement is unlikely to lead to radical changes in the relationship between IT and other suppliers and their customers ...
Dear Sirs, We would like to present you a brief overview of tax legislation updates concerning transfer pricing and VAT on services upon importation of goods into the territory of the Russian Federation. Draft law On Transfer Pricing We would like to pay your attention to the fact that draft law “On transfer pricing” was accepted by the State Duma in the 1st reading ...
Historically, a significant number of states had a general policy of respecting the form of a transaction chosen by a taxpayer and applied their sales tax laws based on that form of transaction ...
The verdict has finally arrived in the long-running IT dispute between EDS and BSkyB, for which the trial ended over a year ago. With legal fees of around £70m and an anticipated damages award of £200m (against a contract reportedly worth only £48m), the case will change the landscape of supplying IT products and services forever. EDS supplied a customer relationship management system to BSkyB ...
The Australian Taxation Office's unsuccessful attempt to freeze the bank accounts of the private equity firm Texas Pacific Group has highlighted the ATO's new focus on private equity activities in Australia. The attempted freeze followed the stock market float of the Myer Group, as the ATO sought a reported tax bill of $A452 million from TPG ...
The Foreign Investment Review Board (Board), being the Australian government body that examines proposals for foreign investment in Australia, recently announced that the monetary thresholds set for the purposes of compulsory notification to the Board of a proposed acquisition will be revised to: AUD231 million, for private business investment (up from AUD219 million); and AUD1004 million, for US investors under the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement (up from AUD953 million) ...
The Russian Federation, the Kazakhstan Republic and the Belarus Republic (hereinafter also referred to as the “Member States”) have formed Customs Union in accordance with the Treaty on Creation of Unified Customs Territory and Formation of Customs Union (Dushanbe, October 6, 2007) ...
Following the recent actions taken by the Australian Taxation Office to freeze the bank accounts of the private equity firm TPG, the Commissioner of Taxation has released two draft Taxation Determinations (TDs): TD 2009/D17 Treaty Shopping - Can Part IVA of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 apply to arrangements designed to alter the intended effect of Australia's International Tax Agreements network?; and TD 200
