The Australian Taxation Office’s (ATO) response to the High Court’s judgment in the Mills case, where the taxpayer escaped the general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR), shows an acceptance the ruling is not limited to tier one capital raising by banks. The response could also help taxpayers outlining GAAR defences in future litigation.
A Portuguese arbitration court (Tribunal Arbitral) denied the tax authority’s transfer pricing challenge of a multinational’s cash pooling arrangement because its use of the comparable uncontrolled price (CUP) method was inappropriate. The case should alert Portuguese taxpayers to review the arm’s-length nature of their cash pooling arrangements.
Navin Jain says this month’s budget may dictate how the Vodafone dispute is settled UK telecommunications multinational Vodafone has announced the Indian tax authorities are still chasing it for $2.5 billion in withholding tax from its 2007 Hutchison Essar acquisition, despite the Indian Supreme Court deciding the issue in favour of the taxpayer last January. The move comes even though recommendations in the Shome committee's October report said retrospective amendments to the India Income Tax Act 1961 – enabling the government to tax the indirect transfer of Indian assets between foreign entities – should be applied only "in exceptional or rarest of rare cases".
The intricacies of the Russian audit and dispute resolution procedures are often challenging for taxpayers but some advisers believe both the system and officials are becoming more amenable. Recent advance pricing agreements (APAs) with oil companies Rosneft and Gazpromneft show a more collaborative approach in action.
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has revealed how it will identify high-risk taxpayers as audit targets in its response to questions posed by the Tax Executives Institute (TEI) which was published today. And the tax authority said there will be no scope for companies to negotiate better risk ratings once they have been determined.
Russia’s Supreme Arbitration Court has dismissed an appeal brought by Jaguar Land Rover and other taxpayers against the government, but the grounds of denial mean taxpayers should still be spared a requirement to issue thousands of corrective VAT invoices to recover overpaid tax.
