European Union

On September 12 2018, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker delivered his 2018 State of the European Union (EU) address at the European Parliament. Accompanying his speech were a number of more detailed policy documents, the most important of which was the Letter of Intent from Juncker and First VP Frans Timmermans to the presidents of the European Parliament and the Austrian EU Council presidency.

During a debate at the European Parliament in mid-April 2018, a representative from the Council of the European Union confirmed to members of the European Parliament (MEPs) that there were "unresolved political issues" which prevented agreement at the council on the European Commission's April 2016 pending proposal for public country-by-country reporting (public CbCR). The two largest parties in the European Parliament, the EPP (Christian Democrats) and the S&D (Social Democrats), asked the council to unblock the negotiations on the proposal for public CbCR. This was generally understood to be the last chance to reach a deal as Austria, which holds the six-monthly rotating EU Council presidency from July 1 to December 31 2018, and could drive discussions in the council forward, is not in favour of the commission's proposal. Germany's new Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said in June 2018 that the German government needed more time and he also counselled caution about the Commission's proposal and hinted at following a tax-centric approach instead.

The New Zealand government has released proposals that would require certain foreign sellers, online marketplaces and re-deliverers of goods to register for, collect and return GST on items delivered to a New Zealand address, if the value of the goods is NZ$400 or less, from October 1 2019, write Brendan Brown and Matt Woolley of Russell McVeagh.