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The UK petrochemical company BP Amoco has made a $4.7 billion offer for the chemical group Burmah Castrol.

Network Solutions, one of the old guard of the internet sector, has been bought by VeriSign in a $21 billion stock swap deal. Network Solutions provides domain name registration and management. It is one of the few internet companies that actually manages to make a profit.

Finance minister Richard Hu announced a budget that drew on a more optimistic reading of the Asian economic climate. Principal changes included a reduction in the corporate tax rate from 26% to 25.5%. The two-year property tax rebate for commercial and industrial properties, announced in 1998 was extended until 2001 but at the lower rate of 25%.

The German draft transfer pricing documentation and APA regulations focus attention on the procedural elements of compliance. The rules, if adopted represent a significant documentation burden. By Thomas Borstell and Ludger Wellens, Ernst & Young, Düsseldorf

The PRC State Administration of Taxation has issued the Trial Measures for Tax Refund in Respect of Equipment Purchased by Foreign Investment Enterprises. Under the Trial Measures, a foreign investment enterprise (FIE) is eligible for a full refund of value-added tax (VAT) paid in respect of the purchase of equipment manufactured by enterprises situated in the PRC, if it has satisfied the following requirements:

Proposals in the UK budget look like transforming the UK from one of the friendliest tax regimes for overseas investment to one of the least favourable of all major investor countries. By Bill Dodwell, Arthur Andersen, London

Hubertus AG was a Swiss corporation with no activity in France. However, it owned 90% of the shares in a French SCI – a real estate partnership – which had realized a capital gain on the sale of a property on the French Riviera.

On February 28, Canada's finance minister, Paul Martin, presented his year 2000 federal budget message. A balanced budget was put forward that also proposed the first personal tax rate cuts in 12 years. Capital gains taxation was relaxed by reducing the taxable income inclusion rate from the current three-quarters, to two-thirds inclusion. The attractiveness of employee stock options was enhanced through deferring taxation of qualifying options until share disposition, as opposed to the historical taxation on option exercise.

Canada’s federal budget attempts to balance the need to reduce excessive personal and business tax rates with the desire to increase government spending. But has it gone far enough to address the issue of tax migration? By Elinore Richardson of Stikeman Elliott, Montreal

Taxpayers’ worst fears of a harsh budget for the next year proved to be mostly unfounded. With the exception of a surprise doubling of the dividend distribution tax, nip and tuck seems the order of the day. By Prayaag Joshi and Ayesha Chandy of Arthur Andersen, Mumbai