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Tim Stewart James Lester In September 2015 the New Zealand Inland Revenue released an issues paper on GST, consulting on a number of matters. One proposal in the issues paper, which draws on OECD guidance and international practice, relates to the GST treatment of services that are "directly in connection with" land.

Anna Misiak During May 2015 the President of the Republic of Poland ratified the agreement' between Poland and the US to improve international tax compliance to implement FATCA and the associated intergovernmental agreement (IGA).

Ivana Blagojevic On September 28 2015, the Serbian Parliament adopted a set of amendments to the Serbian VAT Act. The amendments introduced were published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia No. 83/2015 on October 3 2015.

Ekaterina Bourliand Diana Menchik Import substitution has started to be regarded as an important political objective in the Russian Federation. One of the key elements in achieving this has been the adoption of measures to encourage foreign industrial production to localise itself in Russia. Various measures, under active development, have been deployed to stimulate investment.

Petter Gruner Henrik Brødholt On October 7 2015, the Norwegian government presented the 2016 Budget to parliament. The key tax proposals in the 2016 Budget relevant for foreign corporate investors are as follows:

Mark Galea Salomone Donald Vella Malta's Budget for 2016, presented to Parliament on 12 October 2015, includes a number of measures which will have an impact on the tax landscape. The Bill incorporating a number of the measures announced in the Budget was put forward to Parliament on October 13 2015 but it is still subject to parliamentary approval. An outline of the salient features of some of the measures contemplated in the Budget, as well as measures that have already made their way into the Bill, are discussed below.

Samantha Schmitz-Merle On October 14, the Luxembourg Government presented its 2016 Budget, containing certain tax measures to be introduced in 2015 and 2016. A progressive reduction of the Luxembourg corporate income tax rate has also been announced for 2017 but no further details have been provided.

Christos Bourkoulas Transfer pricing (TP) has become a key area for businesses' tax affairs, tax auditors and tax policy-makers. In light of the fiscal situation in Greece, ambitious revenue targets deriving from TP audits have been set and TP related actions for the purpose of fighting tax evasion have been included in the latest memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the European Commission and Greece for a three year European Stability Mechanism programme. In this ever-changing environment, multinational businesses have at their disposal a new tool – in the form of the advance pricing agreement (APA) programme – that may manage TP related risks and enable them to mitigate the risk of TP disputes in a proactive manner in cooperation with the tax authorities.

Alexander Linn Thorsten Braun The German Federal Tax Court (Bundesfinanzhof, BFH) issued a decision (case ref. I R 29/14) on September 9 2015, in which it held that the domestic transfer pricing rules may not be applied to disallow a write-down of an impaired related-party debt in a case where a relevant tax treaty includes the arm's-length standard provisions of Article 9 of the OECD model treaty.

Myranda Chatzimatthaiou On May 13 2015, during the 24th annual meeting of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in Tbilisi, Georgia and Cyprus signed an agreement for the avoidance of double tax payment (double tax treaty).