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Mexico's government has worked hard to develop the country's tax laws to help businesses compete fairly and increase profits. Not everything that the government has attempted has turned out the way it hoped. Taxpayers need advice from leading tax practitioners about how to deal with the new rules and use them for the good of their companies.

By Jaime González Béndiksen and Jaime Rojas, Baker & McKenzie

Managing VAT is a complicated and risky business because the tax is everywhere, but everywhere is different. Keith Anderson and Kelvin Mullock of KPMG in the UK argue that the growing complexity and risk of the compliance challenge strengthen the case for outsourcing

Although India's decision to introduce a VAT system on April fool's day was tempting fate, Bhavna Doshi of KPMG in India reports that, despite a few teething problems and some unresolved uncertainties, the new regime has been widely welcomed

Time was when "someone in Europe" managed VAT for US multinationals. Mike Loten of KPMG in the UK and Tom Boniface of KPMG in the US explain how Sarbanes-Oxley and a recognition of the problems and opportunities associated with VAT have led many to abandon their policies of benign neglect

By Gary Harley, KPMG in the UK

Type of deal Valuer Acquirer Target Adviser to acquirer (tax) Adviser to target (tax) M&A €930 million ($1.1 billion) LogicaCMG Unilog SA Herbert Smith, Derek Hill Messier Partners M&A $2.6 billion Ebay Skype Clifford Chance, Douglas French and Daniel Cunningham and Ernst & Young Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom and PricewaterhouseCoopers M&A €220 million ($265 million) Candover High technology optics division of Thales Weil, Gotshal & Manges, Sarah Priestley and Janice Seah Addleshaw Goddard M&A €5.85 billion bid ($7 billion) Deutsche Post Excel Linklaters, Ian Bowler, Nicola Newbegin, Robert Howgego Slaughter and May, David Bicknell M&A $3.1 billion stake in the Bank of China, valued at $30 billion Royal Bank of Scotland and a consortium of investors Bank of China Linklaters, Guy Brannan, Lynne Walkington, Steven Pevsner Sullivan & Cromwell M&A $5.85 billion Oracle Siebel Systems Davis Polk & Wardwell, Rachel Kleinberg Cooley Godward M&A £264 million ($318.6 million) Miller Group Fairclough KPMG, Margaret Stevens and Gerard Franklin Ernst & Young M&A A$268 million ($203 million) QBE Insurance Group British Marine Holdings Adrian Williams, in-house legal and Norton Rose Weil, Gotshal & Manges, John Baldry and Janice Seah M&A Not disclosed Honda British American Tobacco sold its 55% interest in Formula One team BAR to Honda Jones Day Herbert Smith, Isaac Zailer and Rob Young Type of deal Value Issuer Lead managers Adviser to Issuer Adviser to lead managers Structured covered bond programme $25 billion ABN Amro Sole adviser Clifford Chance, Frank De Vos IPO $1 billion Innovene Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley Sullivan & Cromwell Davis, Polk and Wardwell, Lucy Farr and Seth Poloner

The 1,375 registrations made this year's International Fiscal Association (IFA) annual congress the largest tax event ever held in Latin America. The number that attended the conference in Buenos Aires from September 11 to September 15 was just short of the 1,600+ attendance in Vienna in 2004.

British companies are putting £5 million towards a research centre at Oxford University that will study the effects of taxation policies on UK business.

Frédéric Feyten: experience in Belgium, Netherlands and US Frédéric Feyten has become the newest tax partner of NautaDutilh, a Dutch law firm, in its Luxembourg office.