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Vicente Bootello José Ignacio Ripoll In the second half of this year, the Spanish government has been carrying out an important reform of several aspects of the Spanish tax system. This governmental reform is expected to affect, among other taxes, corporate tax, for which the most noteworthy change is the possibility of reducing the shareholding stake required to form a consolidated tax group.

Ian Farmer On October 21 2009, the Australian government introduced legislation into Parliament that proposed changes to the taxation of employee share plans. This follows a number of announcements made by the government since May 2009 that had led to a degree of uncertainty. Although the legislation is yet to be passed by the Senate, at this stage it does not appear that other parties will oppose it and therefore we expect it to be passed. This means companies can now move forward by making new awards under existing employee share plans and/or potentially redesigning their employee share plans, as many companies have been waiting for certainty before taking action.

By Jack Grocott

Bob van der Made The European Commission's five-year mandate officially expired on October 31 2009, however, as decided by internal EU institutional procedure, the EU's executive body can stay on in a caretaker capacity until the appointment process of the new commission has been completed.

By Jack Grocott in Brussels

By International Tax Review

Nicolas Jacquot The French government has issued draft legislation which includes new rules regarding transfer pricing documentation and measures with an aim to crack down on tax avoidance with specifically defined "Non-Cooperative States or Territories". These measures may come into force from January 1 2010.

Edward Tanenbaum On October 27 2009, Senator Max Baucus and Representative Charles Rangel introduced the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act of 2009 (H.R. 3933, S. 1934) in the US Congress.

Dirk Van Stappen A Royal Decree dated August 10 2009 (published in the Belgian Official Gazette of August 24 2009) instructs corporations in Belgium to report material non-arm's length intercompany transactions in their annual accounts. No further guidance is provided on what results in a transaction being material. For what is meant by 'related party', one makes reference to the definitions in IAS 24 paragraph 9.

Janina Fornalik The amendments to the Polish VAT Act [the proposal] were enacted by the Polish Parliament on September 25 2009 and are intended to come into force from January 1 2010 (they are awaiting the president's signature). The amendments are aimed to adjust the Polish VAT Act to the Council Directive 2008/117/EC of December 16 2008 [the Directive] amending Directive 2006/112/EC on the common system of value added tax, among others with regard to the reporting rules related to the international transactions. The new regulations will result in higher administrative burden for the taxpayers and should be analysed in details from the perspective of the required changes in IT systems and internal procedures.