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Norbert Sieber became head of tax of Bilfinger, the engineering and services group, on May 1, succeeding Gilles Roux, who has stepped down after eight years to become chief operating officer of Bilfinger International Facility Management.

Edward Osterberg Edward Osterberg has joined Mayer Brown in Houston as a partner in the Tax Transactions and Consulting practice. Osterberg was previously with Vinson & Elkins for 30 years. He focuses on corporate and partnership taxation and international transactions, including advising corporates and individuals on mergers and acquisitions, tax-free reorganisations, corporate spin-offs and other divestitures, foreign operations including cross-border joint ventures with non-US partners, and inbound investment into the US by non-US investors.

Greg Elliott has succeeded Michael Velten as head of tax for CLSA, the Asian banking group. He was formerly managing director – group tax for Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong. Velten became a partner of Deloitte South East Asia in May, with the task of building up the firm's financial services tax practice.

Lesley Holstead, former tax controversy and transfer pricing strategist for a large multinational company, offers a simplified guide to some of the interlocking issues that led to the BEPS review.

The EU's audacious and controversial new financial transaction tax (FTT) is in danger of stumbling straight off the starting block.

Hugh Paynter Hugh Paynter, a dispute resolution lawyer, has become a partner of Herbert Smith Freehills in Sydney. Paynter has acted in major, high-value tax disputes that have dealt with a range of issues and industries, such as for National Australia Bank in litigation with more than A$900 million ($922 million) at stake concerning international hybrid capital raisings (the $1 billion ExCaps and $450 million TrUEPrS), involving general deductibility, Part IVA (anti-avoidance) and transfer pricing issues; Lend Lease in its successful defence of a $95 million Part IVA and capital gains tax dispute concerning its A$365 million Westpac warrant transaction and the Cross City consortium in a A$60 million land rich stamp duty dispute involving significant valuation issues.

Doug Thomas has been appointed the new east regional tax leader for PwC, which makes him responsible for the firm's tax markets in greater Boston, New York, Washington DC, the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida.

Vladimir Kotenko

Daniel Harrison Under the Amended Tax Law (No. 5, dated December 20 2011), which entered force on October 1 2012, changes were made to the deductibility of expenses for profit tax (corporate income tax) purposes. As a result, since the Laos tax year coincides with the calendar year, this meant that taxpayers needed to apply different deductibility rules to the last quarter of the 2012 tax year – as the first three quarters fell under the former Tax Law of 2005. Under Article 34 of the Amended Tax Law, general deductibility has been somewhat simplified, with the general rule now being that expenses that are deductible in calculating annual profit tax include expenses related to business operations that are not specifically non-deductible under the law.

David Cuellar