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Americas correspondent Catherine Snowdon investigates the relevance and effectiveness of flat taxes

The European Commission's fiscal compliance expert group (FISCO) has advocated a series of changes to fiscal compliance regimes. In a report issued at the end of October, the group said changes to withholding and transaction tax systems to facilitate improvements to reporting clearing and settlement of cross-border securities transactions.

International law firm Mayer Brown has appointed five new international tax partners. Their elevation comes as part of 43 promotions worldwide. They will become partners on January 1 2008

Carl Pihlgren In an advance ruling issued on July 6 2007, the National Board on Advance Rulings looked at whether the Swedish shell company rules could apply in a case where a newly established company acquired real estate immediately before its shares were sold to a third party. Normally a sale of shares is tax exempt in Sweden. However, if the sold company is a shell company it is not tax exempt and the whole compensation, without reduction for the acquisition value of the shares, is taxable when the shares are sold.

Roberto del Toro Graciela Rivera On September 14 2007, Congress approved this sui generis tax called new flat tax Impuesto Empresarial a Tasa Unica (IETU), which will be effective from January 1 2008. The existing Asset Tax will be repealed when the new flat tax is enacted.

Suzanne Boers On budget day, traditionally held on the third Tuesday of September (Prinsjesdag), the Dutch government presented its Budget plans for 2008, including the 2008 tax package. The package contains several legislative proposals, which are set to enter into force on January 1 2008 or, in certain cases, on a later date. The proposed changes involve a variety of subjects, such as further reduction of the corporate income tax burden through the extension of the tax brackets, introduction of several environmental charges and the intention to increase the main VAT-tariff. A selection of the proposed changes are summarised below.

French SCIs and Luxembourg companies

Sean Foley On September 27 2007, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued a coordinated issue paper (CIP) that provides guidance to IRS personnel concerning methods which may be applied in evaluating the arm's length charge for pre-existing intangible property made available, for purposes of research, pursuant to a qualified cost sharing arrangement (CSA) (LMSB-04-0907-62).

Gregory Broome has been recruited as a tax partner in the Washington DC-based international law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.

Daren Yeoh, of Moore Stephens, warns taxpayers on the implications of the new law which codifies policy on taxation of financial assets and liabilities