The Internal Revenue Service has proposed guidelines detailing how tax-exempt hospitals can conduct a Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA), as required in the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Although this new requirement is not effective until taxable years commencing after March 23, 2012, the IRS issued its guidance now because hospitals may choose to start the process of conducting CHNAs and implement strategies in advance of the effective date ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has delayed and lowered revenues, creating an unprecedented period of fiscal uncertainty for borrowers of tax-exempt debt. Borrowers forced to navigate these conditions may request lenders defer scheduled debt payments to help weather the storm. Borrowers and lenders of tax-exempt debt must be mindful that a deferral of scheduled payments may endanger the debt’s tax-exempt status ...
The government has recently published a consultation document seeking views in relation to its proposals for business rate retention ("BRR") in England and options for enabling local authorities to carry out Tax Increment Financing ("TIF") within the business rates retention system. The business rates consultation may interest developers, the public sector and those involved in renewables or regeneration, particularly those considering Tax Increment Financed projects ...
Washington communities have a new tool to drive economic development: tax increment financing. Sometimes called “TIF,” this funding method allows local governments to self-finance public improvements that encourage development without imposing new taxes. The 2021 Washington legislature passed a TIF program and Governor Inslee signed it into law on Monday, May 10, 2021 ...
March 28, 2023 By: Meghna Parikh The Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative continues to raise the stakes for government contractors. This initiative uses the False Claims Act (“FCA”) to hold government contractors accountable for knowingly (1) failing to monitor and report cyber data breaches, (2) implementing inadequate cybersecurity measures or (3) misrepresenting their cybersecurity practices ...
The United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced a period for public comment on excluding medical goods from Section 301 China tariffs if they are needed to fight the coronavirus pandemic. The USTR notice was published in the Federal Register on March 25, 2020. The USTR previously granted approximately 200 exclusions from Section 301 tariffs for medical goods because they are needed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S ...
British industry is undergoing a period of unprecedented regulatory reform as part of a government drive to reduce the costs and burdens on business. Over the next year, it will become clearer how effective this reform will be. Following independent recommendations from the Hampton Review and the Better Regulation Task Force (BRTF), Chancellor Gordon Brown launched the Better Regulation Action Plan in May 2005 with the aim of boosting flexibility and enterprise ...
Whether you are a property professional or otherwise, you would have had to have lived in a hole to have missed the EWS1 saga. In the four years following the tragic Grenfell disaster, the industry and the government have been grappling with how to deal with a generation of potentially defective tall buildings ...
On 22 December 2022, the Commissariat aux Assurances (the CAA) released Circular Letter 22/22 on the takeover of intermediation in certain types of life insurance contracts (Circular 22/22).This circular provides guidelines on issues that may arise in the context of a takeover of insurance intermediation (reprise d’intermédiation). 1 ...
All employers who were required to publish a Gender Pay Gap Report1 for the financial year 2017-2018 have now done so. A report published by the UK Parliament’s Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee2 has confirmed that 78% of organisations have gender pay gaps that favour men, and that the national gender pay gap median is around 18%. The picture is worse in certain sectors, where it was found that gender pay gaps of over 40% were “not uncommon” ...
We are seeing an increase in the use of warranty and indemnity insurance (W&I) on transactions, which is a theme we expect to continue as buyers target companies that are in financial distress in the wake of Covid-19. W&I has become commonplace in the UK M&A market as a way to ‘bridge the gap’ between buyer and seller when allocating risk ...
Introduction Advocate General Jacobs, in delivering his Opinion in Syfait and others v Glaxosmithkline (Case C-53/03, 28 October 2004), has found in favour of Glaxosmithkline (GSK) by stating that the refusal by a dominant pharmaceutical company to fulfil all orders from wholesalers does not automatically constitute an abuse of a dominant position, despite such refusal clearly limiting parallel trade of the products in question ...
SyCipLaw's Tax Department has prepared an international edition of its Tax Issues and Practical Solutions (T.I.P.S.) for the second quarter of 2023. Please read the full texthereor via thislink. The SyCipLaw T.I.P.S - International Edition covers the following tax issues: 1. May a public utility treat corporate income taxes as operating expenses for purposes of computing rates chargeable to consumers? 2. For input value-added tax ("VAT") refund claims filed prior to RMC No ...
On June 9, 2023, the Monetary Board of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas issued Circular No. 1174, amending the implementing regulations of the mandatory agricultural, fisheries and rural development financing contemplated by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development Financing Enhancement Act (Republic Act No. 11901 or the “Agri-Agra Reform Credit Actâ€). The implementing regulations were previously set out in BSP Circular No. 1159 dated November 4, 2022 ...
SyCipLaw's Banking, Finance & Securities Department's Banking Bulletin for April 2023 features the latest issuances from theBangko Sentral ng Pilipinas(BSP or Central Bank of the Philippines), which includes the amendment of the miscellaneous rules on deposits and the issuance of rules on mediation and adjudication of financial consumer complaints: BSP Amends Miscellaneous Rules On Deposits On December 14, 2022, the BSP issued Circular No ...
SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan (SyCipLaw) has kept its Tier 1 ranking in M&A and Restructuring and Insolvency in the latest rankings released by IFLR1000, the guide to the world’s leading financial and corporate law firms. Earlier this year, SyCipLaw also received Tier 1 rankings in Banking, Capital markets: Equity, Project development, and in Project finance ...
Global research company Chambers and Partners recently published the Chambers Insurance & Reinsurance Global Practice Guide 2024, with chapters from the Philippines authored by SyCipLaw partners ...
The Philippine Government has issued a slew of resolutions and circulars as part of its response to the COVID 19 pandemic and unsurprisingly, a number of legal and practical issues have beset businesses and persons under the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine (ECQ)1. Like the rest of the world, the country is bracing itself for a new normal – in the way enterprises are run, services are rendered, everyday tasks are undertaken ...
Covid-19 is upending capitalism as we know it. Amid the pandemic, how can businesses rewrite their rule books so as to emerge stronger? Americans have allegedly outbid the French for masks “right on the tarmac” just as the goods were to be flown off to their destination. From Amazon to Rakuten to Carousell, traders exploited fears by price-gouging on masks and hand sanitisers ...
On September 15, 2021, the one-year-long suspension of the Philippine Competition Commission’s (PCC) power to review mergers and acquisitions motu proprio under Republic Act No. 11494 (the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act, or the Bayanihan 2) ends. This means that starting September 16, 2021, the PCC may again review mergers and acquisitions motu proprio ...
I lost my home in the 1991 Oakland Firestorm. As such, my heart goes out to the residents of Napa, Mendocino and Sonoma counties whose homes were damaged or destroyed, to the firefighters and first responders who have risked and are risking their lives, as well as to the community, which will also experience the aftermath of such devastating fires ...
On May 16, 2022, the Colorado Supreme Court issued an opinion that serves as a cautionary tale for health care providers hoping to bill patients at chargemaster rates. The court’s decision in French v. Centura Health turned on the meaning of the phrase “all charges of the Hospital,” as set forth in the hospital service agreement (HSA) signed by Ms. French. Centura argued that the phrase “unambiguously refers to a hospital’s chargemaster rates.” Ms ...
