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Cooperative compliance between governments and multinational enterprises could be critical to efforts to minimise illicit financial flows from Africa, argue Jeffrey Owens and Alicja Majdanska of the Vienna University of Business and Economics.

Bob van der Made On June 17 2015, the European Commission (EC) presented an action plan setting out a new approach to business taxation, to meet the goal of fairer and more efficient taxation and to effectively tackle corporate tax avoidance. The stated objectives are: Re-establishing the link between taxation and where economic activity takes place; Ensuring that member states can correctly value corporate activity in their jurisdiction; Creating a competitive and growth-friendly corporate tax environment for the EU; and Protecting the Single Market and securing a strong EU approach to corporate tax issues, including on implementing OECD BEPS actions, dealing with non-cooperative tax jurisdictions and increasing tax transparency. A new legislative proposal for mandatory (at least for MNEs) common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB) will be presented in 2016. Implementation in two stages: first a common tax base (CCTB), with consolidation to follow at a later stage. If unanimity is not achieved, it is possible that a CCTB could proceed for selected member states under enhanced cooperation.

Mark Galea Salomone

Sandra Benedetto

Ilarion Lemetyuynen

Chris Neil The Australian federal Budget was handed down last month. Of the announced Budget measures, the Bills relating to reducing the tax rate of small business entities from 30% to 28.5% and increasing the threshold for immediate asset deductions to $20,000 have received royal assent. As a part of the federal Budget, the government also announced that it will be extending Australia's GST (value added tax) regime to inbound supplies of intangibles. The reforms, which have been cited in media reports as the 'Netflix Tax', are expected to apply to digital content and software (including apps), online subscription services (including cloud based services and pay-TV services) and other intangible supplies made by non-residents from outside of Australia. If enacted, the reforms will apply from July 1 2017. Note that the reforms will only apply to supplies made to consumers. The reforms will not impact intangible supplies made to GST registered businesses in Australia.

Petar Varbanov Bulgaria is an attractive location for a variety of reasons, including the landscape of political and business stability and the country's membership of the EU, NATO and WTO. The stability of the currency is supported by the currency board, pegging the Bulgarian lev to the euro at the level of 1.96. Bulgaria has one of the lowest government debts in the European Union (18.9% of GDP) and one of the lowest budget deficits (-1.5%) as of 2013. Bulgaria also benefits from a strategic location and provides direct access to: the EU market – zero tariff market with population of 500 million; the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) – a market which is still not very well penetrated but which has great potential; Turkey – zero tariff market with a population approaching 80 million; Middle East – a market with high purchasing power; and the North African market. Due to all the above stated positives and also low tax rates, Bulgaria has become a very friendly environment for foreign investors looking to do business in Bulgaria.

Loreto Pelegrí

Samantha Schmitz-Merle The Luxembourg Government recently presented to parliament a draft law ratifying four double tax treaties (DTTs) concluded by Luxembourg with Andorra, Croatia, Estonia and Singapore and six protocols to existing DTTs concluded with the UAE, France, Ireland, Lithuania, Mauritius and Tunisia. While most of the protocols only aim to bring the exchange of information provisions of existing DTTs in line with OECD standards, the protocol to the Luxembourg-France DTT, the ratification process of which has been closely followed, amends the rules dealing with the taxation of capital gains on the sale of shares in property companies. The new DTTs generally follow the OECD Model Tax Convention. We present the main provisions. As far as residence is concerned, according to the DTTs concluded with Andorra, Croatia and Singapore, companies are, in case of conflict, considered resident in the country in which their place of effective management is located, in line with the current version of the OECD Model Tax Convention. However, under the DTT with Estonia, conflicts of company residence have to be settled by the contracting states by mutual agreement, meaning that the two countries will have to agree on the country in which the company will be considered as resident for DTT purposes. Even though solving conflicts of tax residence by the mutual agreement of the competent authorities is in accordance with the latest draft recommendations under the OECD's work to counter base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS), leaving it to the contracting states to solve these issues is an approach which runs the risk of being impractical and which means a lot of legal uncertainty for taxpayers.

Andrea Pavlicevic Since becoming independent in 2006, the government of Montenegro has recognised the need to eliminate obstacles and reform the business environment to open the economy to foreign investors and bring it closer to the European Union. One important recent step in this regard is related to the seventh art. The government plans to adopt the Law on Cinematography, which provides the return of part of the funds spent by foreign producers filming in Montenegro.