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Clint O’Connell, VDB-Loi Cambodian tax authorities and taxpayers continue to clash over the definition of "turnover" in the laws governing minimum tax (MT) and prepayment of tax on profit (PPT). For many Cambodian companies, the MT represents the total corporate tax payable for any given year. And the PPT is a significant impediment to maintaining a healthy cash flow. All companies in Cambodia have to pay MT, including those that do not technically make a profit that year. MT is calculated as 1% of turnover. PPT is a monthly advance on companies' final tax liability and is also 1% of turnover. Unlike in the accounting standards, there is no clear definition of the term "turnover" in the tax law.

Boris Lazic The end of 2012 marks a great success for Cyprus. The official removal of Cyprus from Russia's tax haven blacklist will take place on January 1 2013. The amended blacklist of the Russian Ministry of Finance has been published on October 31 2012. The Republic of Cyprus was not present on that list. The removal of Cyprus from the Russian black list has a great meaning for Cyprus. It allows Cyprus to freely present itself to the Russian market for outbound investments. Using the tax beneficial Cypriot legal entities for the purpose of investing and paying dividends back into Russia, can now occur without any obstacles. The structure in Diagram 1 shows how a Cypriot legal entity can now be used after Cyprus has been removed from the Russian black list. Some countries with which Cyprus has a double tax treaty (DTT) in place have been chosen for the structure, with the applicable withholding tax rates (WHT) illustrated. Do note however that the structure is used as an example and proper tax advice needs to be sought.

Rudina Hoxha, Eurofast Global The installation of the cash registers and their use is becoming very important in Albania given efforts to consolidate the free competition rules in the market as well as fighting fiscal evasion. The installation of the fiscal devices has taken place in accordance with the Tax Procedures Law no: 9920, dated May 19 2008 (amended). Article 55 of this law explains the obligation of the businesses to use cash registers. According to this article, "the taxpayers, dealing with the circulation of goods and services for which the payments are not made via the bank, are obliged to apply the fiscal system through the use of cash registers to calculate and record sales transactions and give a receipt to the customer".

Rajendra Nayak

Sead Dado Salkovic, Eurofast Global In the case of liquidation of the legal entity, pursuant to the Montenegrin Corporate Income Tax Law (the CIT Law), the legal entity shall be obliged to determine the capital gain or loss as if it had sold the assets including property at market value. For the purposes of determining the capital gain, the purchase price of the property distributed in liquidation shall be equal to the market value of the property before its distribution, and accordingly capital gain or capital loss will be determined in the manner provided by the CIT Law. If the assets of a subsidiary are transferred to the parent company, the parent company has no obligation to determine the capital gain or loss. In general, the capital gain tax is considered as part of the business income and taxed at 9%.

Reto Arnold, PrimeTax Switzerland enjoys a reputation throughout the world as being a location for research and development activities (R&D). Successful R&D activities are the keystone to future economic growth and the foundation for new technologies. Because of its high labour costs and the strong Swiss franc, Switzerland has to concentrate on products and services with greater added value. Various measures taken in different areas should ensure that Switzerland will remain a world champion in innovation in future. Central to ensuring the necessary conditions are measures in the fields of education, research and innovation policy. As experience in other countries shows, it should, however, not be forgotten that the R&D activities must also be encouraged at the fiscal level. Licence exploitation companies are frequently taxed as domicile or mixed companies. But this gives rise to a number of problematic issues: firstly, to be able to claim the privileged taxation at all, domestic royalty income may be collected only in an immaterial amount. Further, the privilege applies only to foreign source royalties. Secondly, a flat-rate tax credit for source taxes on foreign royalty income is possible only to a limited extent. In addition, domicile and mixed companies are the focus of the tax dispute with the EU and it must be expected that in the medium-term these tax regimes will have to be abolished or replaced. Against this backdrop the licence box regime in the canton of Nidwalden represents an innovative solution. Comparable regimes already exist in other EU states, so that the concept is compatible with Europe. In addition the licence box regime is also suitable for royalty income from Switzerland and for source taxes on foreign royalty income the flat rate-tax credit is possible.

Olivier Dussarat

Daniel Harrison, VDB-Loi With the amendment of the Lao income tax regulations in motion, the general profit tax rate for companies is set to fall again. The unofficial word is that the Amended Tax Law (Amended Tax Law No. 5/NA, dated December 20 2011) and new profit tax rate of 24% will take effect from January 1 2013. First announced in a Presidential Edict in March of 2011, the amended profit tax rate stipulated was originally 28%, had an effective date of 1 January 2012 (after various delays), and is the current general profit tax rate for juristic entities not eligible for tax incentives.

David Cuellar

May May Kyi