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Vivendi, the French media and telecoms company, said it had resolved its dispute with the US Internal Revenue Services (IRS) on June 1. The IRS had wanted $1.5 billion from Vivendi but the company will now only pay $686 million. The dispute was over DuPont shares, which Vivendi acquired when it bought Seagram in 2000

"The progress of the European Commission's Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base initiative depends a lot on the German presidency of the EU in the first half of 2007," said a Commission official at a conference on corporate tax strategy in Barcelona on May 31. "If there is no agreement then the initiative may be stalled for some years," added the official, who emphasized that his was a personal view and not an official Commission position. He said if the timetable for a legislative proposal on the CCCTB by 2008 is to be met, drafting would need to begin in mid-2007

Judith Harger has become the first tax partner in the London office of LeBoeuf Lamb Greene & Macrae. She joined from Denton Wilde Sapte

The Dutch parliament received a bill proposing the deduction of 3.9 percentage points from the present corporate tax rate on May 24. If passed, the government would implement the deduction in 2007

Linklaters won the European firm of the year award at International Tax Review's annual European awards dinner. The dinner took place at Claridges, London on May 24. To see who else won, click here

László Kovács, the member of the European Commission responsible for taxation, said member states need to make "a more common and coordinated approach at EU level" to combat tax fraud, as he launched a debate to combat the problem. Analysts think that tax fraud costs about €200 billion ($259 billion) to €250 billion in lost revenue, up to 2.5% of the total EU budget. Kovács is particularly concerned about VAT fraud, which alone accounts for about €60 billion. "The Commission proposes a new Community approach to administrative cooperation with third countries and is prepared to engage in a broad discussion on the need to modify VAT systems, " according to the statement launching the debate.

In a traditional business model, the legal owner of intangibles is often also the economic owner of the intangibles and remains liable for maintaining or increasing the intangible value. However, the economic and legal ownership of intangible property should not necessarily be situated within a same legal entity.

The enlargement and extension of a multinational advance pricing agreement relating to a financial services company demonstrates the flexibility of the concept as a means of providing certainty for taxpayers, according to KPMG

Joel Walters, the new leader of Vodafone's tax department, tells Ralph Cunningham about the role and how it fits in with the rest of the company

Sed Crest speaks to four tax directors from multinationals operating in the region and finds out their staffing secrets