AFRICA TAX IN BRIEF KENYA: Chinese companies investigated by Revenue Authorities Local media reports of 30 May 2014 announce that the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) is investigating a number of Chinese companies suspected of evading tax. KRA Commissioner General John Njiraini said it is suspected that some Chinese-owned businesses are either under- or mis-declaring cargo ...
ANGOLA: Working group for negotiation of investment protection agreements and tax treaties created The Ministry of Economics and Finances and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued Joint Order No.205/17 on 27 April 2017, creating a technical working group to coordinate the negotiation of investment protection and double tax agreements. The working group will be responsible for guiding negotiations and reporting to relevant ministers ...
BENIN: Public Procurement Holders to Benefit from a Tax Regime Derogating from Indirect Taxation The 2017 budget law introduced a derogatory tax regime from which certain public procurement holders may benefit by the Benin tax authorities, assuming indirect taxation. This includes customs duties, internal taxes on turnover (mainly value-added tax ("VAT")) on prices and values of goods and supplies acquired or incorporated into the realisation of the contract ...
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 ...
BOTSWANA: Amending protocol to treaty with France signedOn 27 July 2017, Botswana and France signed an amending protocol to the Botswana/France Income Tax Treaty, 1999 in Gaborone. CAMEROON: VAT refund procedure available onlineThe Cameroonian Minister of Finance issued a communiqué on 14 June 2017, announcing that the value-added tax (“VAT”) refund procedure has been simplified and is available online as from 3 July 2017 for enterprises registered with the Large Tax Unit ...
GHANA: Customs duty on spare parts abolished On 14 June 2017, pursuant to the measures proposed in the 2017 Budget, Parliament passed the Customs Amendment Bill, 2017, which amends the Customs Act, 2015 by abolishing customs duties on the importation of vehicular (including motorcycles and bicycles) spare parts. GHANA: VAT Flat Rate Scheme practice note issued The Ghana Revenue Authority published Practice Note No ...
Corporations that are in need of liquidities can, simply put, not afford to wait until the end of the fiscal year to receive payment of refundable tax credits. For this reason, some lenders offer to advance funds to eligible taxpaying corporations (hereinafter “Taxpayers”) in the form of a loan, while taking security on their future tax credits as collateral (“Advance Tax Credit Financing”) ...
When the scope of the COVID-19 pandemic became apparent in March 2020, an avalanche of articles appeared in which many insurers took the position that there was no coverage for losses associated with the SARS-CoV-2 virus due either to a lack of physical loss or damage to property necessary to trigger coverage under most commercial property policies, or to the effect of virus exclusions found in many such policies ...
Article 10 of the French government’s Ordinance no. 2020-306 of 25 March 2020 on the extension of the time limits during the health emergency period and the adaptation of procedures during said period provides for specific provisions aiming at adjusting certain time limits applicable to tax audits and, more specifically, at suspending their application as of 12 March 2020 until the expiry of a period of one month after the end of the state of health emergency (i.e ...
The Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia (Revenue)’s press release of 13 January 2021 announced the Revenue’s implementation of centralisation and dispersal of tax files for taxpayers of certain categories, with effect from 1 January 2021 ...
This case concerns an adjudicator’s decision issued on 7 December 2020. The adjudicator found in favour of Faithdean plc, ordering Bedford House Ltd, the employer, to repay deductions of around £1.5 million. No payment was made to Faithdean and enforcement proceedings were issued in January 2021. Bedford did not put forward a defence. Instead, it argued it could not pay as it wished to know the exact amount in order to make a single payment to Faithdean ...
For some years, contractors and subcontractors have been using an effective tactic in adjudication. That is to pick off discrete elements of a large time or money claim and to obtain a series of favourable declarations in adjudications on those elements. The declarations can then be used as a bargaining tool to leverage a settlement of the full claim. Or they can be converted into payment orders by way of a further adjudication ...
In order to mitigate the effects of the declaration of a State of National Emergency and provide resources to taxpayers, the following provisions have been published in the Special Edition of The Official Gazette El Peruano, on March 18, 2020: Tax deferrals and/or fractions.- Through Superintendence Resolution No ...
From 1 April 2021, a 2% Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) surcharge will apply to non-UK residents purchasing residential property in England & Northern Ireland. However, what is meant by a non-UK resident in these circumstances can result in some surprising outcomes ...
27.10.2020 –Emergency Ordinance no ...
It would be a surprise to many, but it has been common knowledge to criminal practitioners for years, that a criminal defendant’s sentence for a crime which they have been convicted can be increased based on consideration of conduct that the jury acquitted ...
In Scots law, it is possible to acquire certain rights to land – access, for instance – simply by the passage of time. This process is known as “prescription” and is outlined in the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973. There are two forms of prescription: positive and negative. Negative prescription extinguishes certain rights after a period of time ...
In order to accomplish this important task, the following are steps to follow: A. Make a list of other sides’ interest. It will help your remember them and stimulate ideas for how to meet such needs B. Communicate your interests when they are in conflict. Help the other side to see just how important and legitimate your interests are. Be specific and objective. Convince them they would feel the same in your shoes and recognize how you might feel in their shoes ...
THE CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT, CAN YOU LIVE WITHOUT IT?Patrice André [email protected] are advising a client who is selling his business. The parties have already signed a letter of intent that provides for a due diligence review to be conducted in respect of your client’s business ...
A debtor files for bankruptcy protection, and his or her creditors are sent notice of the filing. Despite having received the notice, due to a breakdown in internal procedures one of the creditors, a bank, accidentally takes action to collect on the debt after the filing of the bankruptcy case – thus violating the automatic stay. Since the violation was unintentional, surely the bank cannot be sanctioned, right? Wrong ...
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has recently issued proceedings against a franchisor and its director for allegedly engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct, in breach of section 52 of the Trade Practices Act (TPA). Various breaches of the Franchising Code of Conduct (Code) have also been alleged ...
On Dec. 18, 2019, the Fifth Circuit in Texas, et al. v. United States, et al. declared the Affordable Care Act’s1 (ACA’s) individual mandate unconstitutional. This decision is contrary to the controlling precedent established by the United States Supreme Court in NFIB v. Sebelius2, which upheld the ACA’s individual mandate as a permissible tax ...
A number of states have issued executive orders or other emergency declarations to provide relief from certain debt collection practices in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. Such measures include ceasing new wage attachments and vehicle repossessions, etc. None have been as comprehensive as the regulation issued by Massachusetts Attorney General, Maura Healey, on March 26, 2020 ...
1. The long-awaited duty requiring users or promoters of operations and transactions whose sole or principal objective is to obtain tax benefits to communicate such operations or transactions to the tax authorities has finally become law in Decree-Law 29/2008 of 25 February. 2. Due to its excessively wide nature, however, the new antiabuse measure raises some very serious doubts ...
Introduction In the recent Industrial Court Award of Harry Wong Wei Chen v Petroliam Nasional Berhad [Award No.11 of 2021] dated 4 January 2021, the Industrial Court upheld the dismissal of an employee (“the Claimant”) on account of several allegations of sexual and workplace harassment. An interesting point in the instant case was the absence of corroborative witnesses in respect of several of the complaints against the Claimant ...
