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In a departure from the trend for the big four professional services firms poaching lawyers for their tax groups, Baker & McKenzie has won a tax partner from KPMG in Los Angeles. Michael Lebovitz joined the Palo Alto office on May 1 but will work with his existing Southern California client base for three days a week. He will be instrumental in helping Baker & McKenzie increase its South California work. Lebovitz specializes in business and tax planning in connection with cross-border investment to and from the US and other countries. While at KPMG he spent some time as the national partner in charge of international tax services for its information, communication and entertainment practice and its healthcare and life sciences practice.

Efforts are made to phase out the extraterritorial income exclusion regime, anti-inversion legislation is proposed, and broad business purpose/economic substance standards are set. By Hal Hicks, David Benson and Margaret O’Connor of Ernst & Young, Washington DC

Influenced significantly by methods based on the OECD transfer pricing guidelines, many countries are adopting and supplementing transfer pricing rules to compete and protect their tax base. This column highlights major transfer pricing developments around the world during the past few months. By Bill Dodge and Giovanni DiCenso, Deloitte & Touche, Washington, DC

In the second instalment of this two-part article, Jan Muyldermans, Kurt De Haen and Wim Eynatten of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Brussels, explain Belgium’s recently issued guidelines on participation exemption

More and more US multinationals are performing corporate inversions to establish parent companies in tax havens and thus reduce the amount of US tax payable. However, as Keith Martin and Samuel R Kwon of Chadbourne & Parke LLP, Washington, warn, the days of the corporate inversion may well be numbered

Excitement is mounting for foreign participation in China’s post-WTO fund management market. However, careful tax planning is essential. Matthew Wong of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Shanghai, reports

UK corporate tax reform and the changes brought about by last month’s Budget will have a major impact on M&A transactions. Gary Richards of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, London, outlines some of the key issues

US firm Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly has hired a KPMG tax partner to lead its tax group in France. Kelly Williams joined the firm's Paris office in early April having been at KPMG since 1994. She previously worked at Andersen in Paris and is trained as both a lawyer and an accountant. Oppenheimer contacted Williams in October last year and has since hired a tax associate for the Paris group. The firm has six partners in Paris, as well as European offices in Brussels and Geneva, and, according to Williams, is planning further expansion across all practice areas throughout Europe. Williams decided to leave KPMG because she was unhappy with the type of work she was performing as a tax partner at a big five firm. She commented: ?Over the years the hierarchy in the big five firms has become oppressive. Once you become a partner there is a lot of administrative work, selling and delegating. I don't think that contributes to serving clients.?

From April 1 2002, all UK companies are eligible for enhanced relief for expenditure on R&D. Enhanced relief was previously confined to small and medium-sized companies (SMEs). The new tax credit is calculated according to volume of expenditure and is available to large companies based on their total qualifying expenditure where that exceeds £25,000 per year.

The introduction of the consolidated tax return system is the most significant change to come out of the 2002 tax reform. Other changes are described below. The tax base has been expanded on account of the anticipated reduction in tax revenues caused by the implementation of the consolidated tax return system.