The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in the US has acknowledged that certain parts of the standard used to account for income taxes cause problems for investors and other users.
The Cayman Islands and Costa Rica have become the 11th and 12th jurisdictions to sign bilateral intergovernmental agreements (IGA) with the US for the implementation of the Foreign Account Compliance Act (FATCA). And soon there could be at least 28, which are being used as the mechanism to clamp down on undeclared assets held by US citizens with foreign financial institutions (FFIs).
A much more focused approach to selecting taxpayers for audit would be one of the benefits if the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) adopted a formal tax risk assessment approach, a group of tax executives, practitioners and academics have said.
Four jurisdictions have received the thumbs-down from their peers in new compliance ratings issued by the OECD's Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes.
Belgium and Sweden could have to defend their tax policies in the European Court of Justice (ECJ) after the European Commission referred both to the court yesterday. Belgium is in trouble because the commission believes its withholding tax rules contain two discriminatory provisions and Sweden faces action because of how it applies VAT to postal services.
