International Taxation

Subscribe to International Taxation via RSS

On January 9, 2011 the Internal Revenue Service reopened the offshore voluntary disclosure program to help people hiding offshore accounts get current with their taxes and announced the collection of more than $4.4 billion so far from the two previous international programs.

The IRS reopened the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP) following continued strong interest from taxpayers and tax practitioners after the closure of the 2011 and 2009 programs. The third offshore program comes as the IRS continues working on a wide range of international tax issues and follows ongoing efforts with the Justice Department to pursue criminal prosecution of international tax evasion.  This program will be open for an indefinite period until otherwise announced.

“Our focus on offshore tax evasion continues to produce strong, substantial results for the nation’s taxpayers,” said IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman. “We have billions of dollars in hand from our previous efforts, and we have more people wanting to come in and get right with the government. This new program makes good sense for taxpayers still hiding assets overseas and for the nation’s tax system.”

The program is similar to the 2011 program in many ways, but with a few key differences. Unlike last year, there is no set deadline for people to apply.  However, the terms of the program could change at any time going forward.  For example, the IRS may increase penalties in the program for all or some taxpayers or defined classes of taxpayers – or decide to end the program entirely at any point.

“As we’ve said all along, people need to come in and get right with us before we find you,” Shulman said. “We are following more leads and the risk for people who do not come in continues to increase.”

The European Commission confirmed that Italian anti inversion rules treating foreign companies owned or controlled by Italian national and owning or controlling Italian companies as Italian resident companies subject to tax in Italy do not violate EC law to the extent that they are designed to combat tax evasion and provide taxpayers with a reasonable opportunity to rebut the tax residency presumption and treat the foreign company as foreign and outside Italian tax net…

The bill on tax federalism currently under discussion in the Parliament would introduce a new flat 20 per cent tax on Italian real estate income. That would benefit foreign investors who are currently taxed at 30 per cent rate under most tax treaties. The new provisions would not apply to foreign real estate income and might be challenged as violating the non discrimination and free movement of capital provisions of EU treaty.…

Secondo la Risoluzione 142/E del 30n Dicembre 2010, Anche il diritto di nuda proprietà relativo ad un investimento estero suscettibile di produrre redditi imponibili in Italia va dichiarato sul modulo RW, facendo riferimento al costo storico risultante dall’atto costitutivo del medesimo, parallelamente alla dichiarazione del diritto di usufrutto da parte del titolare del medesimo.…