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Ivana Blagojevic On September 28 2015, the Serbian Parliament adopted a set of amendments to the Serbian VAT Act. The amendments introduced were published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia No. 83/2015 on October 3 2015.

Ekaterina Bourliand Diana Menchik Import substitution has started to be regarded as an important political objective in the Russian Federation. One of the key elements in achieving this has been the adoption of measures to encourage foreign industrial production to localise itself in Russia. Various measures, under active development, have been deployed to stimulate investment.

Mark Galea Salomone Donald Vella Malta's Budget for 2016, presented to Parliament on 12 October 2015, includes a number of measures which will have an impact on the tax landscape. The Bill incorporating a number of the measures announced in the Budget was put forward to Parliament on October 13 2015 but it is still subject to parliamentary approval. An outline of the salient features of some of the measures contemplated in the Budget, as well as measures that have already made their way into the Bill, are discussed below.

Christos Bourkoulas Transfer pricing (TP) has become a key area for businesses' tax affairs, tax auditors and tax policy-makers. In light of the fiscal situation in Greece, ambitious revenue targets deriving from TP audits have been set and TP related actions for the purpose of fighting tax evasion have been included in the latest memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the European Commission and Greece for a three year European Stability Mechanism programme. In this ever-changing environment, multinational businesses have at their disposal a new tool – in the form of the advance pricing agreement (APA) programme – that may manage TP related risks and enable them to mitigate the risk of TP disputes in a proactive manner in cooperation with the tax authorities.

Myranda Chatzimatthaiou On May 13 2015, during the 24th annual meeting of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in Tbilisi, Georgia and Cyprus signed an agreement for the avoidance of double tax payment (double tax treaty).

Alexander Linn Thorsten Braun The German Federal Tax Court (Bundesfinanzhof, BFH) issued a decision (case ref. I R 29/14) on September 9 2015, in which it held that the domestic transfer pricing rules may not be applied to disallow a write-down of an impaired related-party debt in a case where a relevant tax treaty includes the arm's-length standard provisions of Article 9 of the OECD model treaty.

India is gearing towards the introduction of a goods and services tax (GST), a destination-based consumption tax, replacing several central and state taxes.

Michela Chin Mark Conomy Provisional measure 692/2015 (PM 692) was released by the executive branch of the Brazilian government on September 22 2015. Among other items, PM 692 amends the tax rates applicable to individuals and certain companies on the capital gain deriving from the sale of assets and rights of any nature.

Sabrina Wong Evan Schmid On July 31 2015 the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) issued its decision in Guindon v Canada, 2015 SCC 41. The substantive legal issue before the SCC was whether the penalty under section 163.2(4) of the Canadian Income Tax Act (ITA) was a criminal sanction such that procedural protections in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Charter) should be engaged and the penalties vacated.

Germán Campos Gabriela Varas One of the major changes introduced by Law 20,780, published in the Chilean official gazette on September 29 2014, is the establishment of a general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR) in Article 4-bis of the Chilean tax code, which came into force on September 30 2015.