Search results for

The OECD Council has adopted the recommendations of a study by the organization's committee on fiscal affairs on tax sparing. The study looked at the consequences of tax sparing provisions inserted into tax treaties. It showed that such provisions can give significant scope for tax planning and tax avoidance in both the country of the investor and the country of the investment.

Senior partners from Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand met in New York in April this year, to discuss strategy proposals for a merged firm. One proposal involves hiring 1,000 new members of staff every week for the next five years.

Imperial Tobacco has acquired the Douwe Egberts Van Nelle tobacco business from the Sara Lee group for £652 million ($1billion).

US banks Banc One and First Chicago NBD have agreed to a merger valued at $72 billion.

BankAmerica and NationsBank have agreed to a merger worth $133 billion. The deal will create the largest bank in the US.

The creation of a Transfer Pricing Coordination Group by the Netherlands Ministry of Finance has been welcomed by tax advisers. The group will be responsible for streamlining the approach of the Dutch tax authorities to new transfer pricing questions, and for ensuring a consistent interpretation of the rules by individual tax inspectors. The group will provide assistance on issues dating from March 1 1998. It will serve as a reference point for the Revenue Service units, prepare policy in some instances and contribute to the creation of an international transfer pricing policy. In the past, transfer pricing rules in the Netherlands have been subject to interpretation by individual tax inspectors, which has led to uneven application.

Carnival Corporation of Miami, together with a group of Norwegian investors led by Christiania Markets, is to buy the Cunard cruise ship line from the Norwegian Kvaerner Group for $500 million. The Cunard line operates five cruise ships. Carnival has also reached an agreement with Kvaerner-Masa Yards to develop and design a new class of ships for Cunard.

The Spanish Corporate Income Tax Law (Law 43/1995 of December 27), in force since 1996, provides that charges for intercompany management services are deductible if, among other things, they are compulsory for the recipient company by virtue of a previous written contract.

The Second Chamber of the Netherlands parliament recently adopted a legislative proposal which, if enacted into law, will radically change the existing rules for taxation of employee stock option plans. The new rules will enter into force on the first day after the official publication of the new rules as approved by the First Chamber of Netherlands parliament in the Official Gazette of the Netherlands. The effective date will probably be somewhere in May or June 1998.

The 1998 Japan Tax Reform has now been passed by the Japanese parliament (see International Tax Review February 1998) and became law effective April 1 1998.