Rio Tinto’s “taxes paid” report for 2014 revealed the company paid $ 7.1 billion worth of taxes and royalties globally. The report also voiced Rio Tinto’s concerns over the OECD’s base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) project and the potential for discrimination against multinationals.
Danish tax authority, SKAT, collected DKK 20 billion ($2.9 billion) in tax adjustments in 2014 by challenging 76 companies’ transfer pricing arrangements. The agency’s aggressive tax policy has been widely criticised by business with suggestions that government has an anti-business agenda.
The Income-Tax Department (I-T Department) has issued Cairn Energy (Cairn) with a Rs. 10,247 ($1.6 billion) tax demand over its transfer of assets to Cairn India. The tax demand draws similarities with Vodafone and suggests India still has work to do in proving itself as an investor-friendly nation.
India’s long-awaited advance pricing agreement (APA) roll-back provisions have been released. This will come as welcome news to taxpayers who criticised the government’s 2015 Budget for overlooking important transfer pricing issues.
Italy has introduced a patent box regime based on the OECD’s nexus approach, which will grant exemptions for profits derived from certain intangible assets for corporate and regional tax purposes. Italy’s alignment with the OECD should keep the usual patent box-related criticism at bay.
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) recently released its transfer pricing statistics for 2013-14. While HMRC collected almost twice as much in additional taxes compared with 2012-13, the time taken to resolve advance pricing agreements (APAs) and mutual agreement procedures (MAPs) has increased.
