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The Ministry of Finance and industry representatives are discussing amendments to the recent real estate tax changes following a 10% stock market fall for real estate companies, Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore reported. The real estate industry is unhappy about a switch from VAT to a transfer tax of up to 11%.

Dharmesh Pandya, formerly of Ernst & Young, will head KPMG's India tax centre of excellence in New York, which opened on July 5. The centre will advise KPMG clients investing in India, as well as Indian companies with US interests.

The Congressional Budget Office said on July 7 that corporate tax receipts for the last nine months were up by 26% on the nine months preceding June 2005.

The Korean Ministry of Finance and Economy declared Labuan, which is off the coast of Malaysia, a tax haven on June 30. The declaration means Korean investors using Labuan will not benefit from withholding tax reductions, that the Korea-Malaysia tax treaty made available, as of July 1 2006. When the Korean ministry said it would investigate treaty shopping in November 2005, taxpayers had feared that the ministry would name low-tax jurisdictions such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Ireland as havens.

The new BPV Legal alliance comprises BPV Hügel Rechtsanwälte in Vienna, BPV Braun Haskovcova in Prague, BPV Grigorescu in Bucharest and BPV Jadi-Nemeth in Budapest. The tax group has 11 advisers and is headed by Vienna-based Hanns F. Hügel.

The EU Commission said on July 6 that exemptions from capital gains tax for public sector companies going private constitute illegal state aid.

The State Duma, the Russian parliament's lower house, voted in favour of introducing a 0% mineral tax rate for new oil deposits from the Yakutia Republic, Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk regions of Siberia, on July 7.

José Manuel Barroso, head of the EU Commission, has said that Swiss cantons – regions of the non-EU state – have discriminatory tax regimes, which are illegal under EU law. Barroso said on July 5 that if Switzerland wished to benefit more from the common market then tax legislation would have to change.

A report by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions says that if governments keep on lowering corporate tax rates, there will be a public funding crisis.

The EU Commission referred Spain to the European Court of Justice for infringements to the Capital Duty Directive, which allows EU members to impose a 1% levy on companies created in the member state, on July 10. The EU Commission said on July 13 2005 that Spain should change its legislation to comply with the directive.