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Dieter Endres The Supreme Tax Court has rejected a taxpayer's claim that his profit share from an investment in a Florida limited liability company (LLC) should be automatically exempted from German taxation under the US/German treaty as income earned through a US permanent establishment. The claim was based on the US check the box election made by the LLC to be treated as a partnership, that is, for each investor to be taxed on his own profit share. The German tax office on the other hand saw the LLC as a corporation and sought to treat the profit share of the German investor as a dividend; that is as fully taxable in Germany with a credit for the US tax actually borne.

Sari Laaksonen On June 6 2008, the Finnish government issued a bill to amend the controlled foreign companies (CFC) leg-islation. The amendments were ratified by the Finnish president on November 7 2008. The amendments narrow the scope of application of CFC legislation, and could also require reorganisation of company structures.

Stephen Nelson On November 5 2008 the PRC State Council passed the provisional regulations of the people's republic of China on value-added tax, extending its VAT reform to all industries nationwide from January 1 2009.

Paul Tamaki Jesse Brodlieb The fifth protocol to the Canada-US Income Tax Convention has cleared the US senate and appears poised to enter into force before 2009. All that remains is for the US President to sign an instrument of ratification and the exchange of instruments of ratification between Canada and the US.

Nélio Weiss Philippe Jeffrey With the intention to slow down the devaluation of the Brazilian currency, caused by the current financial crisis around the globe, the Brazilian authorities published on October 23 2008, the decree 6,613 setting forth additional changes to the tax on financial transactions (IOF).

The claimants came out on top of High Court's verdict in the franked investment income group litigation order. However, the European Court of Justice will be pressed into action on further points in the case

Ian Farmer In the current economic climate, businesses are increasingly incurring business losses. The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is starting to focus on what this may mean in terms of taxpayer behaviour and contentious issues. A particular concern that is emerging for the ATO is the possibility that the relative strength of the Australian economy may induce multinational corporations to seek to transfer business losses to Australia, which may lead to a risk for the Australian tax revenue base.

International Tax Review's third Asia Tax Awards were held in Singapore on November 26

Jean-Luc Fisch and Patrick Goebel of Allen & Overy believe the changes to Luxembourg's Sicar investment vehicle, which has some key tax features, will make it easier to set them up and will keep Luxembourg in the front rank for private equity in Europe

John Yuan and Deborah Toaze of McCarthy Tétrault discuss what taxpayers can learn from the first court verdicts in transfer pricing cases in Canada