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Darren Mellor-Clark Darren Mellor-Clark joins Pinsent Masons as head of indirect tax advisory, responsible for growing the firm's overall VAT advisory practice. He joins from KPMG, where he was associate partner in the indirect tax division as well as head of the banking and funds team. Mellor-Clark previously served as head of VAT at UBS.

A monthly commentary on the notable facts, figures and goings-on in the tax world.

The annual circus of jibes, justifications and recriminations visited Britain again last month when Chancellor George Osborne unveiled his latest budget.

Melanie Dowling Andrew Sliwa Patricia Chaback David Kovar Ernst & Young has announced the appointment of six new tax partners amid a host of hires. Melanie Dowling returns to the firm, joining the Business Tax Services (BTS) practice in Boston. Formerly of KPMG and PwC, Dowling worked for Ernst & Young between 2000 and 2001, establishing a US tax desk in the north of England.

Judith Freedman, professor of taxation law and director of legal research at the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation in the UK (which she also co-founded), has been awarded a CBE in the New Year honours list for her work in tax research.

The Polish consulting firm belonging to the Taxand global network has changed its name to Crido Taxand. The company had been operating under the name Accreo Taxand.

Heather Gething of Herbert Smith Freehills, and Andrew Silverman of McCarthy Tétrault, look at the operation of the general anti-avoidance rules (GAAR) in the UK and Canada, the reason for their introduction, and how they have been and are likely to be applied.

Elena Kostovska On December 4 2012, the FYR Macedonian Parliament ratified the income tax treaty signed with Kazakhstan. The ratification was published in the Official Gazette 154 on December 7 2012. The treaty, initially signed between the two countries on July 2 2012, covers the personal income tax and profit tax in FYR Macedonia and the corporate income tax and the individual income tax in Kazakhstan. As is usually the case, the treaty is mostly harmonised with the OECD model; however, certain specifics can be noted.

Daniel Harrison As part of the recent amendment to the tax regulations (the Amended Tax Law No. 05/NA, dated December 20 2011), the Lao legislators have introduced a new depreciation method: Activity depreciation. The less commonly used (for tax purposes) method brings the total number of statutory depreciation options to three; the other two being the pre-existing straight-line and declining-balance methods (although the declining-balance method described in the regulations more closely resembles the sum-of-years-digits method).

Gerry Thornton The Irish Finance Bill 2013 published recently contains a number of features designed to bolster Ireland's attractiveness for international companies doing business in and through Ireland. An overview of the most relevant changes is as follows: Ireland was one of the first countries in the world to conclude an inter-governmental agreement with the US in relation to FATCA. The Finance Bill enables the Irish Revenue to make regulations to collect the necessary FATCA information from financial institutions and to exchange such information with the US. These regulations are expected to be published over the coming months.