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The Slovak parliament has overridden President Rudolf Schuster's March 29 2004 veto of the proposed value added tax (VAT) law. The proposed law is set to take effect on May 1 2004, the day Slovakia joins the EU, and would introduce a flat 19% VAT rate.

The government of Singapore has extended tax breaks to Singapore-based audit, accounting, and law firms to strengthen the country’s position as an international hub for headquarters operations and to encourage professional service firms that are structured as partnerships to expand their operations.

The European Court of Justice ruled on March 11 2004 that the French legislation taxing unrealized capital gains simply because a taxpayer moves to another EU member state infringes the freedom of establishment (case C-9/02 Hughes de Lasteyrie du Saillant).

On April 8 2004 the Senate approved President Bush's nominee, Donald Korb, as Chief Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service and assistant general counsel at the Treasury. Korb, a partner in the Cleveland office of Thompson Hine, started his career in the Office of the Chief Counsel of the IRS from 1974 to 1978 and returned to the IRS as assistant to the commissioner from 1984 to 1986 coordinating the process that led to the landmark Tax Reform Act of 1986.

Baker & McKenzie has beefed up its transfer pricing team, hiring two transfer pricing economists away from big four professional service firms. The firm announced the hire of Donna McComber from Ernst & Young in the San Francisco Bay Area and Thomas Respess from PricewaterhouseCoopers in Washington on April 12 2004.

The US Justice Department and the IRS highlighted their crackdown on tax evasion on April 6 2004. The number of individuals referred for criminal prosecution for tax violations has increased by 35% over the last year. But evasion by corporate taxpayers still remains a big problem according to the General Accounting Office, the US Congress' independent investigative arm. It estimated that more than 60% of companies paid no tax between 1996 and 2000.

The government of Finland has implemented the EU's Interest and Royalties and Savings Tax Directives by amending the Act on Elimination of International Double Taxation and the Act on the Taxation of Nonresidents' Income and Capital.

In the May 2002 issue of International Tax Review (page 58), we reported on a decision by the Cologne Tax Court interpreting language contained in article 23(3) of the former tax treaty between Germany and Canada as a subject-to-tax clause and giving this clause precedence over provisions in the treaty by which items of income "shall be taxable only" in Canada. On appeal, the Federal Tax Court (FTC) has now overruled both the lower court decision and its own 1992 holding on point (judgment of December 17 2003, IR 14/02).

The Australian government has proposed its latest reforms of the country’s international tax system with the introduction of the New International Tax Arrangements (Participation Exemption and Other Measures) Bill 2004 into parliament on April 1 2004.

Bill Ford, chairman and chief executive of the US carmaker, has said that he would support higher fuel taxes in exchange for incentives to promote energy-efficient vehicles. Ford made his comments at the New York Motor Show on April 7 2004.