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Navin Jain says this month’s budget may dictate how the Vodafone dispute is settled UK telecommunications multinational Vodafone has announced the Indian tax authorities are still chasing it for $2.5 billion in withholding tax from its 2007 Hutchison Essar acquisition, despite the Indian Supreme Court deciding the issue in favour of the taxpayer last January. The move comes even though recommendations in the Shome committee's October report said retrospective amendments to the India Income Tax Act 1961 – enabling the government to tax the indirect transfer of Indian assets between foreign entities – should be applied only "in exceptional or rarest of rare cases".

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

Patrick Connolly has joined DLA Piper as a partner in the firm's tax practice in Los Angeles. He advises clients in various industries on complex international tax matters and transactions. He used to be a principal in the international tax services group of PwC in the US. Before that, he was a tax attorney with Sullivan & Worcester.

Jim Fuller

Peter Dachs In terms of South African tax law a person who is not a resident is only taxed on income derived from a source within South Africa. If that person is a resident of a jurisdiction with a double tax agreement with South Africa then it is typically only taxed on such South African sourced income if it operates through a permanent establishment (PE) in South Africa. An issue has historically arisen in respect of foreign investment funds which may qualify as a resident of South Africa on the basis that the relevant fund entity is effectively managed in South Africa. In these circumstances it is taxed on its worldwide income.

Evgeny Timofeev It has been three years since the Supreme Arbitration Court delivered its ruling in the Dirol Cadbury case hinting that bonuses payable to purchasers based on the volume of sales were in effect nothing else than discounts applied retroactively thus affecting the suppliers' sales for VAT purposes. Too bad most (including the Ministry of Finance and the Federal Tax Service) would not listen. If they would, the wholesale leg across most industries would not now be in such a dramatic no way out type situation. The fact that the legislator introduced special VAT treatment for retro changes in price was equally ignored by the industries – even though the government specifically noted bonuses as the target of the amendments when presenting these to Parliament. The new instrument introduced for dealing with such price changes – the corrective VAT invoices – was considered strange and burdensome but most would not bother – still considering bonuses VAT neutral (for no reason at all).

There has been a significant rise in controversy around the world in recent years centred on the topic of the beneficial owner test which appears in the dividends, interest and royalties articles of most double tax treaties. Richard Collier, of PwC, explores the work of the OECD in this area to date and what the future holds, calling for greater clarity on the concept.

On December 27 2012, a significant amendment to the tax and legal regime of the Spanish Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), or SOCIMIs (Sociedades Anónimas Cotizadas de Inversión en el Mercado Inmobiliario), was approved by the Spanish Congress following a proposal by the Spanish government. Javier Hernández Galante and Javier Mateos, of Ashurst, explain why they are optimistic about the changes.

Jacqueline Cottrell and Constanze Adolf of Green Budget Europe explain why France should implement carbon-energy taxation.

The Conseil d’Etat recently handed down a judgment on the deductibility rules for input VAT on expenditure incurred by holding companies active in the management of their subsidiaries. Sonia Bonnabry, of LeXcom, analyses what the decision means for taxpayers.