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Konstantin Korobchenko, of Leiden University, analyses substance requirements with a particular focus on substance requirements in respect of intermediary companies from the perspective of the source state.

The big winners at this year’s Americas Tax Awards were EY, which won the Latin America Tax Firm of the Year and Shearman & Sterling, the winner of the equivalent award for North America.

Kathryn Keneally has left the US Department of Justice (DoJ) Tax Division to join DLA Piper in New York.

Emma Craig-West has joined Alma Consulting Group from the UK tax authorities as R&D tax manager.

Philip Baker Philip Baker, Patrick Way, Patrick Soares and Imran Afzal launched Field Court Tax Chambers in August after their previous set, Gray's Inn Tax Chambers, decided to leave the Inns of Court. Between them, the four cover a wide range of topics in their practices, for companies, private clients and the tax authorities, including property taxation, VAT, trusts and offshore tax, international tax, tax and human rights, inheritance tax, capital gains, stamp duty and stamp duty land tax. They are all well-known speakers, lecturers and writers on tax issues.

Read this month's special features on Asia and tax technology.

Differing tax treaty definitions, or the lack of them, mean that the term ‘operation of ships/aircrafts in international traffic’ has caused controversy for India’s taxpayers, explain Ajit Kumar Jain, Kanchana Ramamurthi and Mehul Jain of BMR & Associates.

The latest international updates from our correspondents around the world.

Gabriela Bancescu In response to proposals of the business environment aimed at making the Romanian capital market more attractive and to align with European Union requirements, Romania changed its main tax procedure legislation in June 2014. The changes are of relevance to residents in the EU, the European Economic Area or a country which is part of an international legal instrument signed by Romania for fiscal administrative cooperation, who are not obliged to appoint a Romanian tax agent to fulfill their tax reporting obligations, but may do so if they choose. This comes as an exception to the general rule requiring non-resident entities, irrespective of their country of residence, to appoint a tax agent in Romania to fulfill tax reporting obligations of the non-resident, including those arising from realising revenues from disposal of Romanian equities.

Michal Spychalski The Polish Ministry of Finance has announced proposed amendments to the VAT Act. The introduction of this package – according to the Ministry of Finance – will increase the effectiveness of the fight against VAT fraud. The new rules will primarily concern the domestic reverse charge mechanism, joint and several tax liability, as well as rules of VAT deduction in case of goods and services used for mixed purposes. The Ministry of Finance is planning to implement these amendments from January 2015. The domestic VAT reverse charge mechanism will be extended and will cover new products, such as mobile phones (including smartphones), portable computers (tablets, notebooks, laptops) and video game consoles. From 2015 reverse charge will also apply to raw gold and certain steel products whose characteristics are similar to products already covered by this mechanism. The domestic reverse charge will only apply if the purchaser is registered as the VAT taxpayer, and – in case of mobile phones – only if daily net amount of sale to one purchaser exceeded 20,000 PLN ($6,000).