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Deloitte will open the desk in New York on September 12 with an initial staff of seven. Peter Willeme, the head of the firm's international tax practice in Amsterdam, will lead the staff.

The Supreme Court in India has issued notice of the special leave petition the income tax department in Mumbai has filed against the Authority for Advance Ruling in a case concerning Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, and its Indian company Morgan Stanley Advantage Services. The petition has been described as "unprecedented".

After a court awarded the Church of Scientology over £4 million ($7.5 million), HM Revenue & Customs is likely to have to give several million to companies owed VAT rebates. HM Revenue & Customs had originally said that they would not acknowledge VAT claims from over three years ago. But the Court of Appeal ruled in February 2006, in a case brought by businessman Michael Fleming, that companies could take claims back to when the tax was introduced.

John Key, a former investment banker and member of parliament for the National Party, said changes to the taxation of foreign investment, breaks for R&D costs, a lower corporate tax rate, and lower levies for start-ups in high growth industries should all be investigated to make New Zealand more competitive.

A Moscow court has knocked $1.5 billion off the tax bill that made the oil company go bankrupt. The court reduced the bill from $13.2 billion to $11.7 billion.

Dan Filby has become vice president of global field operations for Planitax, a company which designs software for corporate tax departments.

Urs Brügger has left Ernst & Young to join PricewaterhouseCoopers.

" 'I won't hold my breath and await the inevitable appointment of John Birt' " is how one correspondent finished their her response to our call for suggestions for a new chairman of the HMRC. Sara Hoare, group tax manager of Wincanton, a supply chain provider, added that the new boss of the UK's tax authority should be "the head of tax of of a FTSE250 company or a partner in a recently started small business". Someone else who might be suitable, she proposed, would have "direct experience of complex personal tax issues and family tax (inheritance tax issues, property, agriculture, forestry etc)". Another likely candidate "would have worked in the past two years at Citizens Advice trying to sort out the tax credits fiasco and the horrific interfaces between the various benefits systems for clients at the sharp end". Sir David Varney's ideal successor would also be someone "still believes in HMRC's right to collect the right amount of tax at the right time".

Ryuta Takaku, formerly with the Japanese government, joined the Baker & McKenzie team on August 1.

The Committee of European Securities Regulators and the US SEC have published a work plan detailing expected standards of financial reporting.