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Malaysia has released detailed guidelines on four new tax incentives revealed in its 2015 Budget, the most attractive of which aims to encourage companies to establish headquarters in Malaysia with a 0% - 10% corporate tax rate for 10 years.

Because tax doesn’t have to be taxing. A less-than-serious look back at some of the quirkier tax stories from the past month.

Per Melberg

Zeki Gündüz Turkish tax law is the subject of the most important court decision to be published in recent times. This decision is the first decision to approach European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) standards, which have been specified in literature and practised for some time now at the Constitutional Court level, and the first to make reference to ECHR property rights. The decision was made after the plaintiff, who lost his case in the courts of first and last instance, took a mistake related to the description of revenue type to the Constitutional Court by way of individual application. The facts of the case are as follows.

Jim Fuller

Francisco Lavandera As is widely known, Spain recently implemented a major tax reform, mainly focused on corporate income tax. But domestic situations are not the only ones affected by the new set of provisions. Certain rules with international tax implications have also experienced substantial changes which are likely to have an effect on the way inbound investments are structured. The most remarkable change is the extension of the existing participation exemption rules – hitherto confined exclusively to shareholdings in foreign entities – to domestic subsidiaries. Although Spanish-source dividends already enjoyed full exemption under certain conditions, the new framework allows for the tax-free treatment of capital gains arising from share disposals in a purely domestic context.

Another month, another series of attacks on multinationals' tax affairs. In Australia, Apple, Google and Microsoft gave evidence to a Senate hearing looking into their transfer pricing, before resource companies BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto took the stand.

While Sweden may be seen as effectively preventing base erosion through limiting interest deductions, the effects on businesses and investments must be carefully scrutinised before being considered in other countries, argue Hussein Abdali and Tord Fredriksson of Grant Thornton.

See who has done the tax work on this month’s biggest deals

The OECD's base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) project is well underway with proposals (at least in draft form) and consultations on all specific action points.