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International bodies and national governments have taken various initiatives over the years to make sure that tax havens, or international financial centres, which is what they call themselves, are not avoiding any tax obligations regarding the substance of transactions. The OECD has had its blacklist of uncooperative jurisdictions, which has been whittled away and now numbers only three in Europe. Policymakers have enacted laws to penalise taxpayers or outlaw transactions which use designated international financial centres. Secrecy and lack of transparency are of the biggest arguments used against these places.

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.

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.

Karen Hayzen-Smith of AMEC tells Georgiana Head that the UK's controlled foreign companies rules should change to encourage investment

By Jack Grocott

By Joanna Faith

Ten corporate tax lawyers have joined the partnership of Garrigues, the Spanish law firm, in nine different offices. Jesús Andujar is the new addition in La Coruña; Juan Antonio Pacheco has become a partner in Alicante; Granada gets another partner in the shape of José Pedro Fernández-Casas and Lisbon's Paulo Nuncio also joins the partnership.

Emil Brincker and Natalie Napier South African law firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr has strengthened its tax department with the appointments of Emil Brincker and Natalie Napier.

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.

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.