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Canadian law firm Stikeman Elliott is advising British American Tobacco (BAT) on its offer to acquire Imasco, the Canadian consumer products group. BAT already owns 42% of Imasco, but is offering to buy the remaining equity for around C$ 10.3 billion ($6.9 billion). If the deal goes ahead BAT will keep Imperial Tobacco, Imasco’s tobacco business, but sell the group’s other subsidiaries.

KPMG and Linklaters & Alliance together are providing tax advice to Tarmac plc on the proposed demerger of their construction operations to Carillion plc, from their Heavy Building Materials division which is being retained by Tarmac.

Slaughter and May is advising UK household products company Reckitt & Coleman on its merger with Benckiser in the Netherlands. The move will create the world’s largest household cleaning products company, valued at £4.86 billion ($7.84 billion).

Baker & Botts is advising Schlumberger on the merger of Sedco Forex Offshore. Sedco will merge with Transocean in a merger valued at $3.2 billion. The merger will create the world’s largest offshore drilling company, which will be called Transocean Sedco Forex.

Germany’s high tax rates have forced both companies and individuals to seek refuge in tax havens. But years of legislation have restricted the opportunities. Hans-Jorg Fischer of Clifford Chance in Frankfurt presents an overall view of Germany’s tax haven regulations

The period during which nonresidents can request the refund of excess taxes paid has traditionally been a controversial matter in Spain.

On June 25 1999, a working committee in the Netherlands published a report entitled Business Taxation in the 21st Century. The committee was composed of representatives of the Ministries of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Finance, and employer unions and trade associations. They made a number of recommendations concerning the tax laws, some of which expanded upon legislation and others which proposed stricter limitations. The most significant of these recommendations are those that affect entities such as NVs (public limited companies) and BVs (private limited companies).

Indian Companies exporting software enjoy several tax incentives / deductions. Foreign companies investing in India should be aware that there are several provisions relating to software exports in the Indian Income Tax Act (ITA) that are inconsistent with each other. This article attempts to highlight these provisions so that an investor can better plan his Indian operations. There are three major tax provisions in the ITA relating to software exports:

The Committee of Fiscal Affairs of the OECD has acted quickly to diffuse a potential row between itself and the BIAC (Business and Industry Advisory Committee) over last year’s report on harmful tax competition.

The OECD has produced a report criticizing Switzerland for its bank secrecy rules. The annual report on the Swiss economy warned that the country would come under increasing foreign pressure to reveal banking information, because of the potential for tax evasion.