Lawyer blog - Finance Business Service

Singapore has reviewed income taxation

Published: 20/10/2017 | blog

The legislative body of Singapore has approved a number of amendments and additions to the Income Tax Bill of 2017 (Income Tax Bill 2017). The specified changes involve a substantially changed approach to the policy of income taxation. It should be noted that during the discussion of this package of changes in the parliament, Minister of State for Finance of Singapore stated that a significant reduction in corporate tax would be achieved by raising the minimum taxable amount from 20,000 Singapore dollars (approximately 14,753 USD) to 25,000 Singapore dollars (approximately 18 441 USD). However, there will be no change in percentage terms, and the relaxation will remain at the level of 50%. At the same time, starting in 2018, the amount of relaxation will be 20% of the tax payable at an income of 10,000 Singapore dollars (approximately $ 7,376). Minister of Finance of Singapore also stressed that this package of changes would help companies overcome economic uncertainty and continue their restructuring. In addition, starting in 2018, a taxpayer will be able to claim a tax deduction for the full amount of payments that were made in accordance with the agreements on the...

Will pressure on business decrease due to changes to risk assessment criteria?

Published: 17/10/2017 | blog

Tags:

#Tax disputes

It is well-known that from July 1, 2017, taxpayers have faced significant problems related to suspension of the registration of tax invoices. Before launching the system of "blocking" of tax invoices, the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine stated that the problem of suspension of the registration of tax invoices for manufacturers, service providers, and agricultural producers would be solved by submitting data in the established form of the so-called "technological table". However, in practice everything turned out to be completely different, and therefore these categories of enterprises are forced to file notice constantly, explanations and a "technological table" for each suspended tax invoice. That is, the promises of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine were not kept, which caused quite justified discontent among small and medium businesses. The Ministry of Finance is trying to rectify the situation by amending paragraph 3 of the "Criteria for assessing the risk degree sufficient to suspend the registration of the tax invoice/adjustment calculation in the Unified Register of Tax Invoices" approved by Order No.567 of 13.06.2017 (hereinafter - the Criteria). The amendments to the...

Will the approach to admission of appeals from judgements change that are not subject to independent appeal

Published: 10/10/2017 | blog

Tags:

#Tax disputes

It is known that the procedural codes of Ukraine contain provisions that establish the right of the parties to judicial proceedings (and in some cases, also other persons) to appeal against judgments. In most cases, the procedural codes contain a specific list of court decisions that are subject to appeal. However, they also contain provisions limiting the right to appeal against a number of court decisions. In other words, not all judgements are subject to immediate appeal (Article 392 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, Article 293 of the CCP, Article 185 of the CACS, Article 106 of the CEP). Article 8 of the Constitution of Ukraine provides that "the Constitution of Ukraine has the highest legal force. Laws and other normative legal acts are adopted on the basis of the Constitution of Ukraine and must comply with it". In accordance with the paragraph 8 of part 2 of Art. 129 of the Constitution of Ukraine, one of the main principles of the proceedings was "the provision of statutory and cassation appeal of a court decision, except for the cases established by law". In this regard, the provisions of the procedural codes on the limitation of the right to appeal a number of court...

Realities of M&A transactions in the Netherlands

Published: 05/10/2017 | blog

First of all, it is important to clarify what the M&A deals are. So, M&A deals ("Mergers & Acquisitions", mergers and acquisitions) constitute a set of activities aimed at merging two or more companies into one corporation with a single governing body, which is accompanied by the transfer of control of business management from one company to another other. M&A deals are a special kind of investment, based on the principles of voluntary consent of all participants of the process and mutual benefit. Such a phenomenon as mergers and acquisitions occurred due to the application of the world experience of the corporate management in the field of company restructuring. The M&A market in the Netherlands is currently very active. This is due to a combination of indicators such as access to cheap loans, positive economic data and constant competition for quality assets. After the parliamentary elections in the Netherlands in early 2017, several parties are attempting to form a coalition government. Once it has been formed, new legislative initiatives are expected. In the third quarter of 2017, the Dutch economy grew by approximately 3.5% and, according to official sources, it will...

Disclosure of beneficial owners as obligatory requirement becomes norm

Published: 05/10/2017 | blog

Tags:

#Business #De-offshorization

In recent years, the world community has realized the importance of the corporate transparency. The Panama Papers, high scandals with corruption and tax evasion have caused a radical shift in the attitude towards anonymous companies. The creation of the registers of beneficial owners (hereinafter referred to as "the UBO registers") is considered as the main instrument for increasing transparency. This idea underlies the EU legislation, FATF recommendations, G20 initiatives, the OECD project to combat on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting. For the EU Member States, the obligation to establish the UBO registers, stipulated by the fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD IV), entered into force on June 26, 2017. However, there are still many questions about how the UBO registers will work in practice. The European states independently define in the national legislation such terms as "legal entity", "legal structure" and "UBO". The concern about data confidentiality is also increasingly growing in Europe, as the countries are discussing who should be allowed access to the registers and for what purpose. Will they provide information only to law enforcement and regulatory...

New requirements for opening a bank account in Malta

Published: 03/10/2017 | blog

Malta is rapidly becoming an international banking center, and today it has offices of more than 25 international banks. Among them are HSBC, BNP Paribas Fortis, Deutsche Bank, as well as the world-famous Mediterranean Bank, Bank of Valleta and APS Bank Ltd. The Maltese banks remain well-capitalized and have high liquidity which makes them attractive both for the deposits of individuals and legal entities, and for current banking operations. Until recently, opening a bank account in Malta was a simple and quick procedure for the customers from around the world, provided they met the requirements of the bank. However, in connection with the implementation of the new European legislation which entered into force in 2014, the European Central Bank assumed the authority to regulate the banking system of Malta at the highest level, significantly tightening the regulatory requirements for the prevention of money laundering and financing of terrorism (Directive (EU) 2015/849). Consequently, the local banks had to reconsider their requirements for the KYC procedure ("know your customer") and compliance. Now, not everyone can open a corporate bank account in Malta. Our specialists...

New european legislation on regulation of financial services markets will soon come into effect

Published: 29/09/2017 | blog

Tags:

#Business #Investments

On January 3, 2018, a new MiFIDII will come into force, significantly changing the existing requirements on regulating the financial markets in the EU. We will consider in today's blog what exactly is MiFIDII and how the regulation of the European financial markets will change. The MiFIDII (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) is the common name for a complex network of legislation, which includes two Directives and three EU Regulations, supported by a number of technical standards and guidelines of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). The measures provided for in the Regulations are directly applied in the EU member states. For the implementation of other standards and harmonization of the national legislation, the updated requirements are established by the competent authorities in each Member State. The current MiFID was adopted in 2004 and it operates with small updates of the end of 2007. Thus, the MiFID not only preceded the financial crisis, but it also did not consider many business models and technologies, which today became a common phenomenon. Consequently, there was an extreme need for such an update. When developing the new provisions, the EU...

Application of blockchain technology in field of insurance

Published: 28/09/2017 | blog

Tags:

#Bitcoin #Investments

The technology of the distributed registry gives the potential to the companies in different spheres of activity to enable them to work more efficiently, create new business models and launch innovative products. But, naturally, the reasonable question arises: will the technology "Internet finance" be able to justify the arisen agiotage? The Distributed ledger technology (hereinafter referred to as DLT), also known as Blockchain, refers to the innovations that can offer a tremendous potential to the large companies for more efficient operation and better customer service but it is not sufficiently developed yet for such applications. The Distributed registries are common databases that contain digital lists of the transaction records. Their unique feature is that the identical copies of the registry are "distributed" between several hosting and information storage servers (hosts) that check transactions written in the form of "packages" by means of the agreed process. After checking, the "packages" are blocked with a cryptographic "hash" or an alphanumeric string of the fixed size, which allows the hosts to check incoming data but does not allow data recovery. Conceptually, the...

Features of taxation of operations with customer-owned raw materials from non-resident

Published: 26/09/2017 | blog

Tags:

#Tax disputes

To date, a fairly large number of taxpayers are carrying out their activities in the field of processing of customer-owned raw materials. The processing of customer-owned raw materials on the territory of Ukraine can be conditionally divided into two groups: the first - processing of raw materials received from a resident, the second - raw materials received from a non-resident, imported into the customs territory of Ukraine with subsequent export of the finished products (re-export). If it is quite clear with the first group, then regarding the processing of the raw materials imported by a non-resident and the procedure for the export of the finished products, certain questions arise. The specialists of Finance Business Service were considering the procedure for the processing of the customer-owned raw materials of the non-resident on the customs territory of Ukraine, as well as the features of the customs and currency regulation of this business transaction. Schematically, the processing of the customer-owned raw materials looks as follows: Most economic relations begin with the conclusion of an agreement. According to its legal nature, the agreement for the processing of...

Responsibility for late registration of tax return or mistakes made in it

Published: 19/09/2017 | blog

Tags:

#Tax disputes

We have repeatedly paid your attention to the changes in the Tax Code of Ukraine, introduced by the Law of Ukraine No. 1797-VIII of 21.21.2016, and the peculiarities of their influence regarding the taxpayers. Today, the Finance Business Service wants to draw attention to another important aspect that arose in connection with the adoption of the above-mentioned Law. Thus, by Law No. 1797-VIII of 21.12.2016, the Tax Code of Ukraine was supplemented by Article 120-1. The issues regulated by this article can be conditionally divided into two groups: violation of the terms of registration of the tax invoice / adjustment calculations; mistakes made in the tax invoice / adjustment calculation. The amount of the penalty for the violation of the deadlines for the registration of the tax invoices is determined as a percentage of the amount of the value-added tax specified in the tax invoice, and the amount of interest depends on the number of missed days from the deadline for the registration. This rule does not apply to the tax invoices made for the supply of goods / services for the transactions exempt from the taxation or those that are taxed at a zero rate. TIME OF...

Lawyer's Blogs