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Elena Kostovska At the end of March 2017, the German Federal Council approved the protocol amending the tax treaty concluded with FYR Macedonia. The amending protocol was signed by both countries in November 2016 to amend the treaty signed in 2006.

Khoonming Ho Lewis Lu On June 7 2017, the OECD hosted a signing ceremony in Paris at which representatives of 68 jurisdictions, including Wang Jun, commissioner of the Chinese State Administration of Taxation (SAT), signed the G20/OECD BEPS Project's Multilateral Instrument (MLI). This is set to update 1,100 double tax agreements (DTAs) and as a further eight countries have formally expressed their intent to sign the MLI, and an additional 25 plus countries are anticipated to join the MLI by the end of 2017, further swathes of the 3,000 plus DTAs in existence are set for update.

Andra Casu Recently, the Romanian tax authorities have been scrutinising taxpayers' situations very closely. Also, it is worth mentioning that currently, the tax authorities are mainly focused on the large taxpayers, as well as on certain industry areas (such as oil & gas and financial services).

Bob van der Made On June 12 2017, the European Parliament's joint ECON and Legal Affairs (JURI) Committee members adopted their joint report on the European Commission's draft directive on public country-by-country reporting (CbCR), with 38 votes in favour, nine against and no less than 36 abstentions, i.e. not exactly a slam dunk. The consolidated committee's compromise report will be published at the end of June or at the beginning of July.

Fernando Giacobbo Ruben Gottberg On May 24 2017, the Brazilian senate ratified the text of the agreement for the avoidance of double taxation (DTA) between Brazil and Russia, signed on November 22 2004, as well as the amendment to the protocol of the DTA between Brazil and India, signed on October 15 2013.

Lewis Lu Curtis Ng The Hong Kong government has revised the concessionary tax regime for certain aircraft leasing activities to ensure it requires require real economic substance and activity in Hong Kong.

Freddy Karyadi Nina Cornelia Santoso On April 28 2017, the Directorate General of Tax (DGT) issued Circular Letter No. SE-11/PJ/2017 concerning the plan, strategy, and measurement of audit performance of 2017 (Circular Letter 11). The circular is essentially issued to increase tax audit effectiveness that will ultimately increase the results of tax audits and be used as a deterrent to promote tax compliance. The DGT stipulates that the 2017 tax audit will focus on, among others, the implementation of the tax amnesty programme. The DGT will differentiate tax audit treatment between taxpayers who have and those who have not joined the tax amnesty programme. For those who have not joined the tax amnesty programme, the DGT may conduct a tax audit for a tax period, part of a tax year or a tax year in which the tax stipulation has not expired. In the event that such a taxpayer is undergoing a tax audit, the tax auditor may also conduct asset tracing for any undisclosed assets in income tax annual tax returns.

Khoonming Ho Lewis Lu On May 9 2017, the State Administration of Taxation (SAT), together with five other government ministries and agencies, issued the Administrative Measures for Due Diligence Investigation of Financial Accounts of Non-Residents as Announcement 14 [2017].

Des Kruger Anne Bennett Non-executive directors (NEDs) of South African companies are reacting with dismay to a ruling from the South African Revenue Service (SARS) requiring them to register and account for VAT on their directors' fees from June 1 2017.

Sean Foley Cameron Taheri On March 27 2017, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Advance Pricing and Mutual Agreement (APMA) Programme issued its annual report on advance pricing agreements (APA) statistics for 2016 contained in Announcement 2017-03. The highlights include: