New UK criminal offence for companies failing to prevent tax evasion

Companies and partnerships face the prospect of being criminally liable if their employees or agents facilitate tax evasion by third parties.

The UK government has taken the next step towards the introduction of a new criminal offence for companies and partnerships who fail to prevent their staff from facilitating tax evasion by a third party. The key point here is that this is not about corporations evading tax themselves, but evasion by third parties with whom any associated person interacts.

Jack Lew, US Treasury Secretary on Tax Avoidance, Earnings Stripping and Inversions

Speaking to CNBC today, Jack Lew, US Treasury Secretary spoke about his view on tax avoidance, and what the US is doing to tackle “frustration in tax systems that don’t seem fair”. This comes on the back of rules to stop US businesses inverting into lower tax jurisdictions, but little likelihood of more widespread US tax reform. 

Finance Bill 2016 - Third match of the day. Worth the wait?

Like the third big name match on Centre Court at Wimbledon, the Finance Bill debate today had to wait its turn. And the preceding games were certainly four set, if not five set marathons, with David Davis on Brexit and Jeremy Hunt on the junior doctors.

So it was nearly 7:30pm before we started. Everyone settled down for some long rallies, including on public country-by-country reporting ("CBCR").

Here are some highlights of the debate as it related to direct taxes, and tax transparency.

Dodd-Frank 1504: Six years in the making

The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) has finally released the rules for the transparency provision, Section 1504, of the Dodd-Frank Act.

Section 1504 requires oil, gas and mining companies listed on US stock exchanges to publicly report, by project, the payments made to US and foreign governments for access to natural resources in all countries of operation. Sound familiar? Yes, that is pretty much the same as the EU rules for extractives companies.

The irony is that the Dodd-Frank Act actually pre-dates the EU rules, but a series of delays, including lawsuits and counter lawsuits, have taken six years to resolve.

Brexit – We DO want to hear from experts!!

Tonight, 11KBW hosted a Brexit event entitled “Where Next?” with a fabulous panel of experts.

Indeed, given the short notice planning of the event, and the large attendance, it is clear that we have NOT had enough of experts, particularly not now!

Here are some highlights of what was said.

OECD Updates on CBCR and Non-Cooperative Jurisdictions

The OECD has just provided an update on the CBCR and "non-cooperative jurisdictions" work via a webcast. Pascal Saint-Amans and Achim Pross set out the latest thoughts. Here are the highlights.

The BEPS Multilateral Instrument – symphony or cacophony?

Today was the latest Public Consultation as part of the OECD BEPS process. This particular consultation focused on the BEPS Action 15, the creation of a multilateral instrument to amend the numerous double tax treaties between countries, to reflect the key proposals of the BEPS project.

The draft text of this instrument has not been published yet, and so the discussion today was more about principles.

One key question came up, and is quite fundamental to how the MLI will operate. I have focused here on the discussion of that one point only.

Should the MLI directly amend perhaps 2,000 bilateral treaties, or sit as a multilateral overlay to adopting tax treaties in perpetuity?