Tax developments or tax-related items reported this week include the following.*
* This is an abbreviated edition of TaxNewsFlash-Week in Tax due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. Any tax developments reported by KPMG member firms during the holiday will be included in next week’s report.
Africa
- Ghana: Tax measures in the 2024 budget include proposals concerning corporate income tax, gross gaming revenue taxation, value added tax (VAT), and electronic invoicing (e-invoicing). Customs proposals are also included.
Read TaxNewsFlash-Africa
Americas
- Canada: Tax measures in the 2023 fall economic update include the underused housing tax (UHT), journalism labor tax credit, clean economy credits, and goods and services tax (GST) / harmonized sales tax (HST) joint venture elections. In addition, the Department of Finance affirmed its commitment to move ahead with its plan for legislation to enact a digital services tax (DST).
- Canada: A KPMG report outlines important tax issues company owners and managers may want to consider in assessing their 2023 tax situation.
Asia Pacific
- Australia: Legislation concerning off-market share buy-backs and franking credits passed Parliament. The legislation now awaits Royal Assent.
- Australia: Legislation proposing to improve the ability of the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to target promoters of tax exploitation schemes and boost the Tax Practitioners Board’s (TPB) investigation powers was introduced in Parliament.
- Japan: A KPMG overview of the tax system in Japan covers the taxation of companies, partnerships, and individuals; international tax; indirect tax; and other taxes and surcharges.
- Korea: The Tax Tribunal held that the facts and circumstances must be examined to determine the actual beneficial owner of royalties paid by a Korean entity to the taxpayer, the legal owner of the underlying intangible property.
- Oman: A royal decree allows the Minister of Finance to grant tax exemptions under the income tax, excise tax, and VAT laws.
Europe
- Serbia: The Minister of Finance published amendments to the rulebook on VAT relating to the manner of keeping records by sellers (i.e., VAT payers) on passenger requests for VAT refunds.
- UK: The Chancellor of the Exchequer presented the UK Autumn Statement 2023, which includes tax measures that would affect businesses and individuals.
- Poland: The Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued an opinion that Articles 1(2), 73 and 78(a) of the VAT Directive preclude the practice of Polish tax authorities of refusing to accept only cash register receipts (without VAT invoices) as evidence of overstated VAT.
- Poland: The Ministry of Finance published a draft regulation extending the list of taxes payable to individual tax micro-accounts effective 1 January 2024.
Read TaxNewsFlash-Europe
Transfer Pricing
- OECD: The latest annual Corporate Tax Statistics covers over 160 countries and jurisdictions, and includes two years of aggregated country-by-country (CbC) reporting data shared between multinational enterprises (MNEs) and tax authorities. The OECD also released an accompanying working paper that provides new data on global low-taxed profit.
- A KPMG report explains why U.S. MNEs need to review their org chart to identify “U.S. sandwich entities” held through foreign entities located in jurisdictions that will have an income inclusion rule (IIR) in effect in 2024.
Trade & Customs
- The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced the largest settlements in history—amounts of $968 million and $3.4 billion—with a virtual currency exchange for violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and apparent violations of multiple sanctions programs.
- The KPMG member firm in Korea prepared a report discussing the following trends in customs audits:
- Plans to conduct special customs investigations to address difficulties in obtaining tax-related documents and information from multinational corporations
- Increased scrutiny on compliance, specifically on the acquisition of import licenses in accordance with individual laws and regulations
- Customs measures in Ghana’s 2024 budget include import duty waivers and exemptions.
United States
- Notice 2023-74 announced that calendar year 2023 will be regarded as a further transition period for purposes of IRS enforcement and administration with respect to the lowering of the de minimis threshold for reporting on third party settlement organizations (TPSOs) under section 6050W(e) on Form 1099-K.
- Rev. Proc 2023-37 provides the rules regarding qualified pre-approved plans and section 403(b) pre-approved plans, and combines, conforms, clarifies, and updates rules for such plans previously set forth in prior revenue procedures.
- The IRS hosted a telephonic hearing to discuss proposed regulation regarding digital asset transactions. A KPMG report lists some of the follow-up questions asked by the IRS representatives, showing that they are actively working towards finding solutions to facilitate reporting on digital asset transactions.
State and local tax
- California: The Franchise Tax Board petitioned the California Office of Tax Appeals for rehearing of an opinion addressing whether the entire amount of qualifying dividends paid by a qualified foreign subsidiary and received by a California water’s-edge group member is reflected in the sales factor or only the amount remaining after applying the 75% dividends received deduction allowed under Cal. Rev. & Tax Cd. § 24411.
- Florida: Senate Bill 352 would adopt a never-seen-before type of sales tax holiday. Specifically, between 1 June 2025 and 31 July 32025, Florida sales tax would not be due on the retail sale of tangible personal property or services if the sale was paid for using virtual currency and the purchase was made at certain enumerated establishments, such as grocery stores and bars.
- Louisiana: The Department of Revenue ruled in Revenue Ruling 23-001 that as part of its collection of a portion of the amount paid under an online peer-to-peer vehicle sharing program, the taxpayer would be required to collect and remit sales tax and is also responsible for collecting and remitting the separate automobile rental tax that would be due on taxable rentals made through the platform.
The items described above are also reported as editions of TaxNewsFlash:
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