KPMG’s Week in Tax: 5 - 9 December 2022

Recent tax developments from around the globe for the week of 5 - 9 December 2022

Recent tax developments from around the globe for the week of 5 - 9 December 2022

Tax developments or tax-related items reported this week include the following.

Africa

  • Kenya: The Court of Appeal held that the 1% minimum tax on gross turnover is unconstitutional.
  • Kenya: The High Court of Kenya held that apple concentrate (an ingredient used for manufacturing cider, an alcoholic beverage) was subject to a duty rate of 10%.   
  • Kenya: The multilateral competent authority agreement (MCAA) on the exchange of country-by-country (CbC) reports was signed in September 2022.
  • Nigeria: The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) announced a one-month waiver of all penalties and interest computed by the TaxPro-Max on additional tax liabilities arising from monitoring, desk review, tax audit and tax investigation exercises. Affected taxpayers must settle all outstanding principal liabilities on or before 31 December 2022 to benefit from the waiver.

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Americas

  • Canada: The Department of Finance announced two new public consultations on the design of the clean hydrogen investment tax credit and the labour conditions to be met to receive the maximum tax credit rate under both the clean technology and clean hydrogen investment tax credits.
  • Canada: The federal fuel charge is scheduled to take effect in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island as of 1 July 2023.

Read TaxNewsFlash-Americas

Asia Pacific

  • Qatar: Provisions of an income tax treaty between Qatar and Oman will become effective from 1 January 2023.
  • Azerbaijan: In trade and customs-related news: (1) electric vehicles, and second and third level electric energy chargers, will be exempted from customs import duties; and (2) Azerbaijan joined the additional protocol of the “Convention on International Carriage of Goods by Road.”
  • Philippines: The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) issued additional guidelines and procedures on the manner of payment of penalties for violations of the permitted scope of work-from-home (WFH) arrangements for registered business enterprises (RBEs) in the information technology-business process management (IT-BPM) sector, who are mostly Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA)-registered enterprises, occurring between 1 April 2022 to 12 September 2022. 
  • Saudi Arabia: Amendments to Articles 33 and 34 and a new Article 36 of the VAT regulations set out additional rules for applying a zero VAT rate to some categories of supply.
  • Vietnam: The General Department of Taxation (GDT) issued guidance to owners of e-commerce trading platforms required to provide certain information to the tax authority.
  • Vietnam:  The Ministry of Finance issued detailed guidance on corporate income tax obligations for enterprises that create and use a science and technology development fund.

Read TaxNewsFlash-Asia Pacific

Europe

  • EU: The European Commission (EC) proposed a series of measures to modernize and digitalize the EU's VAT system.
  • EU: The EC proposed new tax transparency rules for all service providers facilitating transactions in cryptoassets for customers resident in the EU.
  • Germany: The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) held that the requirement under German law to form a fiscal unity for VAT purposes that a parent company, in addition to a majority interest in a company's capital, possess the corresponding voting rights, is not a necessary and appropriate measure to prevent abuse and to combat tax evasion as allowed under the EU VAT Directive.
  • Poland: The government published draft legislation amending the VAT law to make e-invoicing mandatory effective 1 January 2024.
  • Slovakia: The National Council approved an amendment to the VAT law that would introduce a temporary decrease of the VAT rate (from 20% to 10%) as of 31 March 2023 for certain services.
  • Estonia: The government proposed (1) to increase the basic income tax exemption for individuals and to extend the tax exemption on donations to Ukraine, and (2) measures regarding reporting obligations for digital platform operators.
  • Italy: The 2023 budget bill currently being considered by parliament includes a provision under which no agency or fixed place of business permanent establishment (PE) of a non-resident investment vehicle would be deemed to exist in ltaly provided certain conditions are met in connection with the activities of an investment manager.
  • Italy: Several positive decisions with respect to withholding tax on dividends paid to investment funds were rendered across the different court levels in Italy in 2022.
  • Belgium: The government published a draft law that would modernize the system of periodic VAT returns and the enforcement of VAT debts.

Read TaxNewsFlash-Europe

Transfer Pricing

  • OECD: A public consultation document on Amount B under Pillar One was released. Comments are requested by 25 January 2023.
  • United States: A KPMG report examines the role of mutual agreement procedure (MAP) requests in compulsory payment determinations under the foreign tax credit (FTC) rules.
  • EU: Adoption of the EU minimum tax directive proposal was removed from the Economic and Financial Affairs Council of the EU (ECOFIN Council) meeting agenda.
  • Israel: The Tel Aviv-Yafo District Court upheld the tax authority’s valuation of intangible property sold by the taxpayer due to insufficient and inconsistent taxpayer documentation.
  • Kenya: The multilateral competent authority agreement (MCAA) on the exchange of country-by-country (CbC) reports was signed in September 2022.
  • Romania: Qualifying multinational enterprises doing business in the EU are required to publicly disclose certain information on a country-by-country (CbC) basis—effective for the first financial year beginning after 1 January 2023 (in the case of entities which opted for a financial year different from the calendar one).

Read TaxNewsFlash-Transfer Pricing

FATCA / IGA / CRS

  • Liechtenstein: The tax authority issued an updated version of the compression tool guide for the common reporting standard (CRS) bulk reporting.

Read TaxNewsFlash-FATCA / IGA / CRS

United States

  • Final regulations except certain partnership-related items from the centralized partnership audit regime created by the “Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015” and set forth alternative rules that will apply to the examination of excepted items by the IRS.
  • Proposed regulations identify certain syndicated conservation easement transactions and substantially similar transactions as listed transactions, a type of reportable transaction.  The proposed regulations provide that material advisors and certain participants in these listed transactions would be required to file disclosures with the IRS (i.e., Forms 8886 and 8918) and would be subject to penalties for failure to disclose.
  • Rev. Rul. 2022-24 provides tables of covered compensation under section 401(l)(5)(E) for the 2023 plan year. For purposes of determining covered compensation for the 2023 year, the taxable wage base is $160,200.
  • The Emerging Issues Task Force (EITF) has reached a final consensus on EITF Issue 21-A to expand the population of investments for which an investor may elect to apply the proportional amortization method (PAM).
  • The U.S. Treasury Department announced that officials from the United States and Croatia have signed a comprehensive income tax treaty that closely follows the U.S. Model income tax treaty. The new tax treaty will enter into force after the United States and Croatia have notified each other that they have completed their requisite domestic procedures.
  • A KPMG report examines the role of mutual agreement procedure (MAP) requests in compulsory payment determinations under the foreign tax credit (FTC) rules.
     

State and local tax

  • California: The state tax authority proposed several clarifying amendments to the regulation addressing marketplace sales.
  • Florida: A circuit court held that a taxpayer’s receipts from sales of services were not Florida-sourced sales because most of the taxpayer’s payroll was outside Florida.
  • Ohio: The state Supreme Court recently overturned a Board of Tax Appeals determination that receipts related to the use of intellectual property were Ohio-sourced for commercial activity tax (CAT) purposes.
  • Tennessee: The state tax authority issued two rulings addressing whether taxpayers were providing nontaxable services or taxable computer software.

Read TaxNewsFlash-United States

Trade & Customs

  • The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of the U.S. Department of Commerce released an order renewing the temporary denial of export privileges of three U.S. companies based in North Carolina based upon facts indicating that the U.S. companies engaged in conduct prohibited by the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by exporting, or causing the export from the United States, of controlled technology to China for 3D printing without the required U.S. government authorization.
  • BIS released a final rule amending the EAR by adding 24 entities and removing one entity from the entity list.
  • The U.S. Treasury Department published a determination that the price cap on crude oil of Russian origin is $60 per barrel.
  • The U.S. Department of State released a temporary suspension of the applicability of regulations for certain capacitors described in the U.S. Munitions List Category XI that have a voltage rating of 125 volts or less.
  • BIS released an interim final rule that extends the deadline for written comments on the interim final rule amending the EAR to implement controls on advanced computing integrated circuits, computer commodities that contain such integrated circuits, and certain semiconductor manufacturing items.
  • New compliance program guidelines provide an overview of an effective compliance program and an introduction to defense trade controls, including information on the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). 

Read TradeNewsFlash-Trade & Customs

The items described above are also reported as editions of TaxNewsFlash:

 

 

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