For European countries crawling out from under recession, a key growth strategy has been a focus on shifting the burden of taxation from companies to consumption. However some of its leading taxpayers report they have yet to see the benefit.
Five African tax authorities are convening in South Africa next month to discuss a UK development agency’s arguments that SABMiller avoids tax in the continent, but media reports suggesting the company is about to be audited have jumped the gun.
Opposition to the UK’s controversial decision to increase taxes on the country’s energy industry has gained pace, with major players active in the North Sea writing an open letter to finance minister George Osborne, telling him the move has damaged investor confidence and could cripple the country’s gas sector.
President Hugo Chavez has unveiled a revamp of Venezuela’s upstream regime, hiking the already-hefty 60% tax rate on oil production to as much as 95%. But the massive rise may not be as onerous as it looks, and may not prompt an exodus from the nation’s oil patch.
The US and UK governments rarely see eye-to-eye with Venezuela, but tax policy in all three countries looks set to make life more difficult for oil companies.
Slovenia has announced plans to introduce a bank levy, following in the footsteps of a number of other European countries, but its tax has quite a different purpose.
