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On November 2 2018, Hong Kong's new research and development (R&D) regime was enacted and applies to eligible expenditure incurred on or after April 1 2018.

Recent developments have increased the likelihood of New Zealand considering a tax on digital services.

On August 31 2018, the revised IIT Law was passed by China's Parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC). The revised law will come into full effect from January 1 2019. In advance of this, revised IIT standard personal deductions and tax rates tables have applied from October 1 2018. Following on from this, on October 20 2018 the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the State Administration of Taxation (SAT), released draft IIT Law implementation rules, as well as the draft guidance on itemised deductions thresholds, both for public consultation. The consultation period has now ended but the final rules are still to be released.

The tax authority under a formal and strict application of such criterion has rejected expenses that were perfectly reasonable from a business perspective.

On October 2 2018, the EU Council agreed to adopt several proposals from the European Commission to reform the EU VAT system. These proposals included four 'quick fixes' to the prevailing regime that will apply to improve the functioning of the existing VAT system, pending the introduction of the 'definitive' VAT system that is still the subject of continuing discussion.

In April 2018 the Federal Tax Service of Russia issued a letter (Letter No. CA-4-9/8285@) containing guidelines for lower tax authorities on how to use the beneficial ownership concept when applying treaty benefits in Russia.

Switzerland is phasing out principal company and finance branch rulings as part of broader tax reform.

Serbia and San Marino signed a double taxation agreement (DTA) on April 16 2018, thus effectively resulting in the removal of San Marino from the Serbian list of countries with a preferential tax regime. The Law on Confirmation of the DTA was adopted by the Serbian Assembly on September 25 2018 and San Marino is expected to start the application of the DTA as of January 2019.

The number of companies joining Russia's tax monitoring or 'horizontal monitoring' programmes is on the rise.