Issues

Hong Kong has seen substantial changes to its tax landscape in 2018. Curtis Ng, Michael Olesnicky, John Timpany and Ivor Morris discuss Hong Kong’s tax changes for transfer pricing (TP) and research and development (R&D) aimed at enhancing Hong Kong’s competitiveness and driving its economic growth.

Tax incentives in Croatia for research and development (R&D) projects were granted between 2007 and 2014 based on Articles 111 a. to 111 f. of the Act on Scientific Activity and Higher Education. However, the European Union issued Commission Regulation (EU) No. 651/2014 in June 2014, concerning certain categories of state aid; this used significantly different terminology, definitions, and requirements, and rendered the abovementioned articles invalid. Croatian entrepreneurs found themselves in something of a vacuum for more than three years, awaiting a new legal framework for R&D incentives, as the relevant tax incentive had been abolished on January 1 2015. In July 2018, the Croatian Parliament adopted and published the Act on State Aid for Research and Development Projects, which the government had submitted in January 2018.

In general terms, inherence can be described as the relationship between the cost and the enterprise, where the cost has a specific relevance to the determination of income; this is a result of its connection not to a specific revenue, but rather to an activity potentially able to produce income. Based on this assumption, in order to consider a cost deductible (i.e. inherent), the taxpayer is required to demonstrate clearly the connection with the activity, providing the tax authority with "sufficient" documentation.