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The Irish Minister for Finance made his annual budget announcement on October 10 2017. The budget contained a number of measures proposing amendments to domestic Irish tax law, most of which were in line with pre-budget expectations. In addition, as part of the budget package, the minister also published a paper on Ireland's international tax strategy and corporation tax review (the strategy paper), which provides valuable insight into the Irish tax policy agenda for the coming years.

The German federal government and the federal states have set up a joint working group to examine the possibility of lowering the threshold that triggers the real estate transfer tax (RETT) in share deal transactions. In addition, some of the federal states in the upper house of Parliament launched their own initiative to ask the federal government to consider amending the RETT code based on future recommendations of the joint working group.

The Australian government is reviewing the tax policy applicable to stapled structures, which are commonly used in the real estate, infrastructure and related sectors following the issue of Australian Taxation Office (ATO) Taxpayer Alert 2017/1 and a Treasury consultation paper earlier in 2017.

I present this month's magazine to you with a heavy heart after hearing the sad news of fearless investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia's murder.

The European Union has released another state aid decision that targets a US multinational corporation. Joe Kennedy, senior fellow at the US Information Technology and Innovation Foundation who specialises in tax and regulatory policy, examines the global damage the EU’s actions could cause.

The Local Taxes Act (Act), part of the 2017 Croatian tax reform, entered into force on January 1 2017. The main change includes the introduction of the new real estate tax (not to be confused with the real estate transfer tax) and the abolishing of the company name tax. Aside from the real estate tax, no further taxes are introduced. Instead, the taxes regulated by the Law Concerning the Financing of Units of Local Government and Regional Self-Government are being transferred and incorporated into this new Act in order to align them into a more efficient and structural manner within the goals of the Croatian tax system reform.

Read this month's special features on Malta and tax technology and transformation

Significant changes are being made to the tax legislation governing the oil and gas sector, as well as new guidance on the taxation of capital gains.

The new dispute resolution Directive is expected to cut costs for businesses Ministers of the EU Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) have agreed on a new system for resolving double taxation disputes between member states that could see litigation and compliance costs fall considerably for businesses operating in the EU.

While walls, wire fences and border checks proliferate around the world, the EU is looking to liberalise VAT rules to break down barriers to trade within its borders. Joe Stanley-Smith explores the EU’s proposals for a new definitive VAT regime with Maria Teresa Fabregas Fernandez, director for indirect taxation and tax administration at the European Commission.