Author: Дмитрий Батраков

Over the past two decades, online commerce has become one of the main ways of doing business. Virtual payments are made simply and quickly by filling out simple forms and making a few mouse clicks. Funds are almost immediately transferred from bank cards and are received on the accounts of companies, then the goods and services are delivered to the customers by mail or in person. However, along with all the apparent perfection of such transactions, they are still under control of banking institutions, which implies a number of limitations. Fortunately, progress does not stand still and traditional currencies have been replaced by a cryptocurrency - a virtual form of currency that uses blockchain technology and has decentralized nature. In other words, digital coins are a confidential financial system that allows making remittances without information leakage. Thus, an alternative to the use of credit cards and bank accounts to pay for goods and services today is the use of cryptocurrency, and Bitcoin is the most famous version of it. Accepting payments in Bitcoin has a wide range of advantages for both online stores and offline sales. Certainly, the decentralized nature of...

The Dutch Government plans to strengthen the regulatory regime for representative offices of Dutch trusts, preventing tax evasion and fraud. Recently the Minister of Finance Wopke Hoekstra has announced the key provisions of the new supervisory mechanism approved by the Council of Ministers. In accordance with the introductions, the trust management scheme should be organized as a private or state company (BV or NV) and fulfill certain requirements within the framework of the test for physical presence in the country. Passing the test involves conducting day-to-day management of the trust in the territory of the Netherlands by at least two of its managers. Another significant change is the ban on the provision of trust management services and tax planning to the same person, as well as on the transfer of their competencies with respect to observing the compliance requirements for external management. The obligation to exchange information with each other within the framework of a due diligence mechanism is also introduced for the trusts, so the client who does not meet the verification requirements in one company will not be accepted into another. The reformed...

The mechanisms for providing the global standards of information exchange in tax matters for Jersey and the Isle of Man have been subject to a review by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, which includes 147 experts, have carried out “revision”. The assessment of jurisdictions for tax transparency included 2 phases. The first phase assumed an analysis of the legal framework of the states, and the second one - monitoring of how fully it is implemented in practice. According to the results of such control, a certain indicator of the level of compliance with the international standard is fixed over the jurisdiction: “compliant”, “mostly compliant” “partially compliant” or “non-compliant” respectively. Within the framework of the second assessment phase, Jersey and Man were given the highest rating, which indicated the recognition of their achievements by the OECD with respect to compliance with global standards of information exchange in tax matters. Now the islands are included in a group of less than 10 jurisdictions which are ahead of the most EU and...

On November 3, the National Bank of Ukraine together with Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv held a meeting of the representatives of banking community, experts in finance and scientists to discuss the theoretical and practical aspects of bringing the domestic legislation in line with the provisions of the European Union acts for the fulfillment of the requirements of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU. The discussion took place within the framework of the international scientific and practical conference on the subject: “Theory and practice of adaptation of banking legislation of Ukraine to the EU requirements”, organized by the NBU and higher educational institution. The Head of NBU Office European Integration and International Programs Vladimir Kuchin opened the discussion, who told about the actions of the regulator on the creation of the mechanism for the implementation of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union. In particular, the central bank is working towards the introduction of four fundamental acts for banking sector: EU Directive 2013/36 and EU Regulation No.575/ 2013 (so-called CRD / CRR IV...

The European Commission has made an announcement about the start of public consultations on the issues related to taxation of digital economy. The purpose of such an event is to develop an optimal approach to this aspect of the EU tax policy. The consultations are organized in the form of a questionnaire, and it is indicated in the relevant materials that the Commission “studies possible solutions to certain taxation problems caused by digitalization”. First of all, the EC is focused on creating more equitable and efficient tax system, supporting state revenues and ensuring equal conditions for business. In addition, it has plans to develop the necessary measures to support the growth and competitiveness of the European Union by creating a single digital market. At the same time, the Commission emphasizes the possible need for a two-stage approach, in which, after adoption of a “target-oriented, temporary solution”, a “comprehensive, long-term package of measures” will follow. The respondents are offered a list of temporary and long-term measures with the need to indicate to what extent each of them will help to solve existing problems. The temporary...

On October 23, the international rating agency Standard & Poor's revised the credit rating of the Bank of Cyprus, having upgraded it to “B” and changed the forecast from “stable” to “positive”. In addition, S&P announced it expected the further increase of the bank credit rating in the next 12 months, subject to continued consolidation of public finances and economic recovery at the same pace. The forecasts of the agency for the period from 2017 to 2020 are very optimistic: it is expected that GDP of Cyprus will be increased by 3% per year. Commenting on the upgrade, S&P noted that the previous estimation was due to a number of problems that the Bank of Cyprus faced and they mainly related to the need to “reduce non-performing loans and return to sustainable profitability”, as well as low asset quality. Officially, Cyprus is still in the “junk” category, that is, it does not correspond the investment level, being a step lower according to S&P assessment and three steps lower according to Moody's and Fitch (“Caa1” and “B-“ respectively). You can find out about the features of the rating systems of the three largest special agencies...