Italy: PM Giuseppe Conte warns of Russian and Turkish involvement in Libya

Conte also said his government will launch an ambitious programme to tackle tax evasion. amid a stagnant economy.

Read more at :
https://www.euronews.com/2019/12/28/italy-pm-giuseppe-conte-warns-of-russian-and-turkish-involvement-in-libya

USA: Paradise Files: Trump commerce secretary's business links with Putin family laid out in leaked files - by Jon Swaine and Luke Harding

Ross, a billionaire and close friend of Trump, retained holdings in Navigator after taking office this year. The relationship means he stands to benefit from the operations of a Russian company run by Putin’s family and close allies, some of whom are under US sanctions.

Corporate records show Navigator ramped up its relationship with Sibur from 2014, as the US and EU imposed sanctions on Russians. The measures followed Putin’s aggression in eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. Navigator has collected $68m in revenue from its Sibur partnership since 2014.

Ross, 79, has apparently faced little official scrutiny over the arrangement. He told a US ethics watchdog that he was keeping a pair of obscurely named holding companies, but did not specify whether he would also retain their interests in Navigator and its lucrative contract in Russia.

The Ross interests appear in the Paradise Papers, a trove of millions of leaked offshore files reviewed by the Guardian, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and other partners. They join established links between Ross and Russian finance that have raised questions over his selection by Trump to head the US Department of Commerce.

Read more: Trump commerce secretary's business links with Putin family laid out in leaked files | News | The Guardian

The Netherlands: Dutch tax inspector allows U.S. multinational to evade $169 mil. in taxes - by Janene Pieters

Dutch Tax Services

A Dutch tax inspector gave United States multinational Proctor & Gamble permission to move 676 million dollars to the Cayman Islands untaxed, Trouw reported on Tuesday based on its own investigation into the so-called Paradise Papers. As a result, the Dutch treasury missed out on 169 million dollars, or over 145 million euros, in taxes, according to the newspaper.

The Paradise Papers is the collective name for 13.4 million documents and emails about tax havens. The data was leaked to German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, who shared it with global media through international journalist collective ICIJ.

According to Trouw, this decision, or so-called ruling, was made by a local inspector at the Rotterdam office of the Tax Authority in 2008. The inspector seems to have made the decision by himself, without consulting anyone else. According to the Tax Authority's rules, rulings involving such high amounts must first be submitted to a special team of ruling specialists. The Tax Authority acknowledged to Trouw that this ruling did not comply to the Authority's own rules. The spokesperson could not explain why or how this happened, and did not know whether local inspectors violated the rules in other arrangements with multinationals.

Trouw has the document showing the arrangement with Proctor & Gamble (P&G) in its possession. The American multinational is one of the largest suppliers of household and healthcare products in the world. In the Netherlands the company is known for brands like Oral-B, Always, Pampers and Gilette.

Over the past few years, such Tax Authority rulings were frequently subject to criticism, especially after the revelations of the Panama Papers and so-called sweetheart tax deals with multinationals like Starbucks. The Tax Authority doesn't reveal the content of such agreements, which means that the Tweede Kamer - the lower house of Dutch parliament - can't check the agreements. Despite the criticism, several State Secretaries did not scrap the rulings, as they make it more attractive for foreign companies to settle in the Netherlands, according to NU.nl.

These rulings must, however, comply to strict conditions. Former State Secretary Eric Wiebes of Finance sent a standard format of such rulings to the Tweede Kamer earlier this year as an example. It showed that rulings are subject to requirements like a description of the company's global structure, a signature of a second inspector and a list of conditions the company must comply with to keep the agreement from being annulled.

Trouw showed the agreement with P&G to Jan van de Streek, professor of Tax Law at Utrecht University. According to him, it looks nothing like the example ruling Wiebes sent to the Tweede Kamer. This agreement consists only of a two-page letter written on PricewaterhouseCoopers stationary, which refers only to a telephone conversation with the Rotterdam inspector. There is no sign of the other required data, the list of conditions or the signature of a second inspector.

Note EU-Digest: An interesting point is that in last weeks Parliamentary debate, whereby PM Rutte outlined the plans of the new Government the coming years,  he passionately defended to continue the Dutch Government policy of welcoming US multi-Nationals to the Netherlands with open arms - because as he said "it creates jobs". 

The truth of the matter is that even though there are several multi-national companies located in the Netherlands, most of the Multi-Nationals come to the Netherlands, mainly because the Netherlands is known as a Tax Haven for Multi National Companies 

As to the job creation in the Netherlands by US multi-Nationals referred to by PM Rutte, obviously some jobs are created, but in reality most jobs are the result of local small business activities and trade related business developments within the EU.

Read more: Paradise Papers: Dutch tax inspector allows U.S. multinational to evade $169 mil. in taxes | NL Times

Tax Evasion: "Paradise Papers' documents touch Trump administration" - by Brent D.Griffiths

The group behind the release of last year’s Panama Papers has published a new collection of documents about offshore finance that touches the Trump administration.'

The so-called Paradise Papers show financial connections between wealthy Russians and two members of President Donald Trump's administration, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and White House adviser Jared Kushner, who is also the president's son-in-law.

The more than 13 million documents — most of them leaked from Appleby, one of the world’s largest offshore law firms — were obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, the outlet that also obtained the Panama Papers documents. The Washington, D.C.-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and nearly 100 news organizations including the New York Times dug into the trove of documents.

The revelations so far do not relate directly to Russian interference in the 2016 election or to special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe. But the New York Times reported that even after joining the administration, Ross has maintained investments in a shipping firm with close connections to a Russian oligarch subject to U.S. sanctions and to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law. 

Read more: Paradise Papers' documents touch Trump administration - POLITICO

Corruption: A Worldwide disease

Unfortunately we keep voting in the same political crooks over and over .

For the complete report click here

EU Taxation Policies: US warns EU over Apple’s tax case

Is Apple cutting corners when paying taxes?

The US government has threatened the European Commission (EC) with retaliation if the body decides to proceed with its plan to demand millions of dollars in unpaid taxes from technology giant Apple.

The US Treasury Department issued a rare warning on Wednesday, August 24, accusing the Brussels-based body of becoming a “supranational tax authority” that poses a threat to international agreements concerning tax reform.

“The US Treasury Department continues to consider potential responses should the Commission continue its present course,” the Treasury said in its strongest language to date.

“A strongly preferred and mutually beneficial outcome would be a return to the system and practice of international tax cooperation that has long fostered cross-border investment between the United States and EU member states,” the warning added.

The European Union (EU) has been investigating a series of tax deals between Apple and Ireland which allow the iPhone maker to pay little or no tax on income earned across Europe.

The EC is expected to rule on the case next month. This is the biggest corporate tax avoidance investigation ever undertaken by the commission.

The EC is the executive body of the EU, responsible for implementing decisions, proposing legislation, upholding the EU treaties and managing the day-to-day business of the bloc.

According to investment bank JP Morgan, if Apple is forced to retroactively pay the Irish corporate tax rate of 12.5 percent on its pre-tax profits, the company might need to cash out as much as $19 billion.

A 2013 report by US Senate confirmed that Apple has paid little to no taxes on at least $74 billion of the profit it earned by exploiting Irish and American tax laws.

Tim Cook, who became Apple’s CEO after the death of its founder Steve Jobs five years ago, has denounced the case as “political crap.”

“There is no truth behind it,” he said. “Apple pays every tax dollar we owe.”

The EU estimates that tax avoidance by multinational corporations costs member states anywhere between $50 million to $78 billion a year in lost taxes.

In addition to Apple, other American companies like Amazon and Starbucks are also suspected of tax evasion.

Note EU-Digest: Hopefully the EU Commission does not cave-in for these US misguided threats and intimidations and tells the US Treasury Department where to shove this warning, which is protective of US corporate tax evaders.   

Read more: PressTV-US warns EU over Apple’s tax case

Offshore Banking Tax Evasion: Tax investigations launched over ′Panama Papers′ revelations

Panama Revelations : Tax Evasion

The 11.5 million documents from the files of Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca, the world's fourth biggest offshore law firm, revealed the details of hundreds of thousands of clients using tax havens.

The records, which were obtained from an anonymous source by German newspaper "Süddeutsche Zeitung," cover a period of almost 40 years, from 1977 until last December. They are alleged to show that some companies domiciled in tax havens were used for suspected money laundering, arms and drug deals, and tax avoidance.

Georg Mascolo led the research for the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" and two German broadcasters on the basis of the data from he law firm's files. They shared the information with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the international arm of the Center for Public Integrity, and a hundred other international news organizations. More than 370 journalists from 76 countries have spent a year going through the material.

ICIJ Director Gerard Ryle said: "I think the leak will prove to be probably the biggest blow the offshore world has ever taken because of the extent of the documents."

Mascolo said Sunday evening on German television that he expected the insight into the business of tax havens to be quite "explosive," adding that more revelations will come out. The news "is very remarkable because we have not had such insight into the business of these tax havens on this scale," Mascolo said.

The UK tax authority, HMRC director-general of enforcement and compliance Jennie Grainger said on Sunday they had approached the ICIJ for access to the material: "We will closely examine this data and will act on it swiftly and appropriately," she said. "Our message is clear: there are no safe havens for tax evaders and no-one should be in any doubt that the days of hiding money offshore are gone."

The Australian Tax Office said on Monday that it would investigate more than 800 Australian clients of Mossack Fonseca for possible tax evasion: "Currently we have identified over 800 individual taxpayers and we have now linked over 120 of them to an associate offshore service provider located in Hong Kong," the Australian tax office said in a statement. It did not name the Hong Kong company.

The law firm Mossack Fonseca has claimed the revelation of the data is a crime: "This is a crime, a felony," Ramon Fonseca, one of the firm's founders said on Sunday. "This is an attack on Panama because certain countries don't like it that we are so competitive in attracting companies," he said.

Juergen Mossack, the other lawyer who co-founded the firm more than three decades ago, was born in Germany in 1948 and moved to Panama with his family, where he obtained his law degree. Mossack's father served in Hitler's Waffen-SS during the Second World War, according to the ICIJ, citing US Army records. It said "old intelligence files" showed the father had offered to spy for the CIA.

The company has denied any wrongdoing, saying it has acted beyond reproach for 40 years and that it has carried out robust due-diligence procedures. The firm also operates in Switzerland, Cyprus and the British Virgin Islands.

The report listed twelve current and former national leaders - from Argentina, Georgia, Iceland, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirate and Ukraine - among 143 politicians, their families and close associates known to use tax havens. Russian President Vladimir Putin's friend from childhood, the cellist Sergei Roldugin, was named as the linchpin in a scheme to hide money from Russian state banks offshore.

Among national leaders with offshore wealth listed in the papers were Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's prime minister; Ayad Allawi, ex-interim prime minister and former vice-president of Iraq; Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine; Alaa Mubarak, son of Egypt's former president and the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson.

More than 500 banks registered nearly 15,600 shell companies with Mossack Fonseca, according to the ICIJ's analysis.

While the use of offshore companies is not illegal, action to avoid payment of taxes can be. It can also have political consequences. The families of eight current and former members of China's supreme ruling body, the politburo, have been found to have placed wealth offshore.

A member of Fifa's powerful ethics committee acted as a lawyer for individuals and companies recently charged with bribery and corruption, according to the documents. Footballer Lionel Messi is mentioned in the document.

 Read more: Tax investigations launched over ′Panama Papers′ revelations | News | DW.COM | 04.04.2016

Tax Evasion: Switzerland publishes names of foreign tax evaders

Switzerland has reportedly published the names of foreigners wanted for tax frauds after requests from Russia, France, Germany, India and other countries. This may mark the end of Swiss bank privacy tradition, dating back to the 1930s.

After the government of Switzerland received numerous formal requests from foreign tax authorities, it decided to list the names, birthdates and nationalities of alleged tax evaders in its federal newspaper, Deutsche Welle said, citing Swiss media Sonntagszeitung.
 
The data will be publicly available on the Internet, which will allow the people on the list to protest the publication in court.

Banks have little interest in seeking customers who no longer keep their accounts in Switzerland, said Alexandre Dumas, a Swiss federal tax authority official.

Read more: Switzerland publishes names of foreign tax evaders – reports — RT Business

Corporate Tax Evasion: Activists look to take bite out of McDonalds for EU tax avoidance - by Obert Hackwill

:America’s fast food giant McDonalds is being accused of setting up an elaborate tax avoidance scheme.

Labour unions backed by the War on Want charity have asked the European Commission to expand an existing investigation into Fiat and Amazon to include the burger chain, and look into where more than a billion euros of unclaimed tax went between 2009 and 2013. They say revenues were routed through low-tax Luxembourg, making royalty payments to a subsidiary.

“More and more companies do it, it’s becoming almost impossible to supervise the companies, while millions of citizens have to pay their taxes everywhere,” says the European Union Public Services’ Federation’s Pablo Sanchez.

McDonalds insists its actions have respected existing legislation and that it has done nothing wrong. The fast-food firm adds its tax bill last year in France alone was over a billion euros.

Read more: Activists look to take bite out of McDonalds for EU tax avoidance | euronews, world news

Multi - National Tax Evasion: Is Burger King’s move to Canada a raw deal for U.S. taxpayers?.- by Eileen Appelbaum

With tax inversions, by reincorporating overseas and turning the foreign subsidiary into the “parent” company, at least on paper, the company is free to use its offshore cash however it wants without having to pay U.S. corporate taxes on the money. Private equity companies have a history of domiciling portfolio companies that do most of their business in the U.S. in the Cayman Islands or other tax havens.

So it may not be surprising that it is Burger King BKW 3.16% , which was formerly private equity- owned and whose major shareholder is still the PE firm 3G Group, whose massive tax inversion deal breaks this mold. Most tax inversions involve a large U.S. multinational acquiring a small subsidiary, but Burger King and Tim Horton’s are both multi-billion dollar businesses with similar market capitalizations. Most tax inversions have been motivated by a desire to bring offshore profits back to the U.S., but Burger King doesn’t have much in the way of profits parked offshore.

Burger King executives have defended the deal by saying that plans to expand globally is what’s driving the deal rather than tax considerations, but tax experts are skeptical of this explanation. It seems the company just wants to pay lower taxes. In any case, if the deal is not met with customer resistance as Walgreen’s now-abandoned tax inversion plan was, it could lead other multinationals that directly serve consumers to renounce their U.S. citizenship to reduce their taxes.

This may be legal, but that doesn’t mean that it’s right. The corporate defense that companies need to do what’s best for their shareholders and take advantage of every loophole in the corporate tax code rings hollow when these companies employ an army of lobbyists to make sure that the tax code is riddled with loopholes.

Public outrage at the recent spate of tax inversions by high-profile multinationals that want to shift profits earned in the U.S. overseas to reduce their tax bill may finally overcome the clout of corporate interests and lead to action by Congress to limit the opportunities for engaging in this tax avoidance scheme. Treasury and the IRS are also considering measures to discourage tax inversions by making earnings ‘stripping’ illegal and eliminating some of the benefits of such deals.

Even before the Burger King deal was announced, the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the potential tax revenue the Treasury would lose to tax inversions over the next 10 years could amount to $19.5 billion. If not stopped soon, lost tax revenue from tax inversions may mount much higher. The country faces an urgent need to stop corporate inversions. This is one tax loophole that Congress should move quickly to close.

Read more: Is Burger King’s move to Canada a raw deal for U.S. taxpayers?

Tax Evasion: France's Hollande slams Internet giants including Google on tax evasion

President Francois Hollande said Thursday that France would not continue to tolerate the tax optimisation strategies used by multinational Internet giants like Google.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-02-france-hollande-slams-internet-giants.html#jCp

"This is not acceptable and that is why, at both the European and the global level, we must ensure that tax optimisation... can be called into question," Hollande said on a visit to the offices of Internet sales company vente-privee.com in the Paris suburbs.
His comments follow reports that France is seeking one billion euros ($1.36 billion) in tax from Google over its fiscal strategies.
"Everyone must be in the same competitive situation, including on the fiscal level," Hollande said.
"When I go to the United States in a few days, we have agreed with President (Barack) Obama to make this effort on tax harmonisation," he said.
Hollande is making a state visit to the United States from February 10 to 12, during which he will meet with major tech firms including Google, Facebook and Twitter in Silicon Valley.
Magazine Le Point reported on Tuesday that Paris has decided to make the claim against Google, though neither the company nor tax authorities would confirm it.
France is one of a growing number of nations to pursue more aggressively what they see as abuse of tax and accounting rules that allows some multinational companies to pay less tax.


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-02-france-hollande-slams-internet-giants.html#jCp

 President Francois Hollande said Thursday that France would not continue to tolerate the tax optimisation strategies used by multinational Internet giants like Google.

"This is not acceptable and that is why, at both the European and the global level, we must ensure that tax optimisation... can be called into question," Hollande said on a visit to the offices of Internet sales company vente-privee.com in the Paris suburbs.

His comments follow reports that France is seeking one billion euros ($1.36 billion) in tax from Google over its fiscal strategies.

"Everyone must be in the same competitive situation, including on the fiscal level," Hollande said.

"When I go to the United States in a few days, we have agreed with President (Barack) Obama to make this effort on tax harmonisation," he said.

Hollande is making a state visit to the United States from February 10 to 12, during which he will meet with major tech firms including Google, Facebook and Twitter in Silicon Valley.

Magazine Le Point reported on Tuesday that Paris has decided to make the claim against Google, though neither the company nor tax authorities would confirm it.

France is one of a growing number of nations to pursue more aggressively what they see as abuse of tax and accounting rules that allows some multinational companies to pay less tax.

President Francois Hollande said Thursday that France would not continue to tolerate the tax optimisation strategies used by multinational Internet giants like Google.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-02-france-hollande-slams-internet-giants.html#jCp

Read more: France's Hollande slams Internet giants on tax

Tax Evasion: Rich countries failing to address money laundering and tax evasion, says OECD

The world's richest countries are failing to deliver on their pledges to crack down on money laundering and tax evasion, which drains billions of dollars from poor countries, a report said on Wednesday.

The damning assessment from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a group of 34 countries, comes despite tough rhetoric on illicit financial flows from leaders of the G8 group of industrialised countries, particularly the British prime minister David Cameron.

According to Global Financial Integrity, a US NGO, illicit financial flows from developing countries between 2001 and 2010 reached $5.8tn, with China responsible for almost half of the total – five times as much as the next highest source country, Mexico.

At a time of declining official development assistance, donors and aid recipients see the loss of revenues to poor countries through illicit flows as an increasingly urgent problem. The OECD report measures for the first time its members' responses to the flows – money laundering, bribery by international companies, recovery of stolen assets and tax evasion, including abusive transfer pricing (pricing goods to minimise tax payments). In all areas, OECD countries are found wanting.

Anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing are governed by 40 recommendations drawn up by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an inter-governmental body established in 1989. The recommendations cover areas such as beneficial – or true – ownership of companies, and customer due diligence and record-keeping (knowing customers and understanding their risk profiles).

On average, OECD countries' compliance with key recommendations on money laundering is low, said the report. The lowest areas of compliance includebeneficial ownership and politically exposed people (prominent individuals who can abuse their position).

Read more: Rich countries failing to address money laundering and tax evasion, says OECD | Global development | theguardian.com

The Netherlands: Does the Netherlands risk losing foreign investment to Britain' if letter box companies are closed down?

The Netherlands may lose its advantage when it comes to attracting foreign investment because other countries such as Britain are making their tax regimes more attractive, says the Financieele Dagblad in one of their reports recently.

The paper bases its claim on interviews with lobby groups and tax advisers.

For example, Amcham, the American Chamber of Commerce in the Netherlands, has warned deputy finance minister Frans Weekers that American firms are regularly opting for London rather than the Netherlands, the paper says.

Both new firms and existing companies such as holdings are turning to Britain.

Amcham points out that while three-quarters of the US capital which comes into the Netherlands moves out again via letterbox companies, the money which remains is more than French, German and Belgian investments combined.

Note EU-Digest: In their report Het Financiele Dagblad seems to be lobbying  for Tax Evading companies and their advisers. They fail to report that Dutch laws are completely different from British laws when it concerns tax evasion and Letter-Box companies. Letter-Box companies which are closed down can only go to Britain or any other country in the EU unless they comply with local  tax laws. Let's hope the EU Commission does not fall asleep on this issue and ends the opportunities created for multi-nationals to evade taxes through legal loopholes in the EU.

Read more: DutchNews.nl - 'The Netherlands risks losing foreign investment to Britain'

The Netherlands - while poor segments of Dutch population suffer Government still legally allowing 20,000 letter-box companies to circumvent taxation

The Netherlands harboring  more than 20.000 letter box companies

A White House factsheet in 2009 reported. "Nearly one-third of all foreign profits reported by US corporations in 2003 came from just three small, low-tax countries: Bermuda, the Netherlands, and Ireland."

Like the Queen in Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' who protested that 'The lady doth protest too much, methinks,' the Dutch government hypocritically objected to the Netherlands being dubbed "a tax haven" and the White House agreed and deleted the line. 

The Dutch tax haven, has now more than  20,000 letter-box companies and in recent years even Facebook joined U2, the popular Irish rock group, to circumvent the tax system.. 

The Netherlands also hosts thousands of foreign financial vehicles. Bloomberg reports that a bookkeeper’s home office in Amsterdam also doubles as the headquarters for a Yahoo! Inc. offshore unit. 

It is a scandal that deficit-strapped Holland is raising retirement ages and taxes on the working classes while the Netherlands’ Government of PM Rutte and coalition partner Samson continues to allow their country to be a €10.2trillion conduit on the global tax-avoiding network. 

 

Bloomberg says that attracted by the Netherlands’ lenient conservative policies and and an extensive network of tax treaties, companies such as Yahoo, Google, Merck & Co and Dell have moved profits through the Netherlands

Using techniques with nicknames such as the “Dutch Sandwich,” multinational companies routed €10.2trillion in 2010 through 14,300 Dutch “special financial units,” according to the Dutch Central Bank. Such units often only exist on paper, as is allowed by Dutch  law.

Google, IBM and Italian oil and gas group ENI head the list of companies using letter-box companies to cut their Dutch tax bills to between 0 and 5%, the Volkskrant daily said in an article.

According to theDutch  Financieele Dagblad , French state companies are also among those using the Netherlands to cut their tax bills.

In the meantime the Dutch Governmen has been dancing around the subject.  

Frans Weekers, Dutch deputy finance minister, said the controversy over the letterbox companies had damaged the Netherlands’ investment climate. “Over the past 10 years the trend has been for the number of letterbox companies in the Netherlands to keep growing. I want to turn that trend around,” Weekers told The Financial Times. “I see the Netherlands being portrayed in a bad light. I don’t want to be portrayed in a bad light." 

Recently the Dutch government said tax treaties with Zambia and 22 other poor countries will be revised to allow the incorporation of anti-abuse clauses where necessary, but has not said a word about the major players which have letter box companies registered in the Netherlands and are involved in these tax evading schemes 

The European Commission has now said it will attempt to close a loophole that allows companies to cut their tax bill, a top official said on Monday, but the EU executive will first need to persuade member countries to back the change.

The commission wants rules to prevent companies setting up “letter-box subsidiaries” in countries solely to qualify for a softer tax regime and cut their bill.

Algirdas Semeta, the EU’s taxation commissioner, wants to insert an anti-abuse clause by the end of next year, allowing authorities to target artificial “parent-subsidiary” schemes that flout the spirit of the tax code.

“When our rules are abused to avoid paying any tax at all, then we need to adjust them,” he said. “Today’s proposal will ensure that the spirit, as well as the letter, of our law is respected.”

Semeta declined to name countries or companies that exploited the loophole but said that billions of euros were at stake.

 EU-Digest

The Netherlands: More than 100,000 migrant workers 'fail to register', costing state €150m in lost revenues

At least 100,000 migrant workers are not paying local and national taxes in the Netherlands because they have not registered with their local council, RTL news reports on Tuesday.

RTL says this is costing national and local government €150m a year. By not registering, migrants don’t have to pay water and waste collection charges or health insurance and motoring taxes. In total, this adds up to €1,500 per person a year, the broadcaster said.

In Rotterdam and Amsterdam officials estimate some 30,000 migrant workers have not registered. In The Hague the figure is put at 14,000. By law in the Netherlands, everyone has to register with their local council (GBA) when they move to the area.

Read more: DutchNews.nl - 100,000 migrant workers 'fail to register', costing state €150m: RTL

Tax Evasion: "Our Bucks Not Starbucks" - Starbucks pays UK corporation tax for first time since 2009

Coffee giant Starbucks has paid euro 5.85 million in UK corporation tax - its first such tax payment since 2009 - the company has announced.

A company spokeswoman said it had listened to its customers and would pay another £5m later this year.

The move follows pressure from politicians and campaigners, and an agreement by world leaders last week to clamp down on corporate tax avoidance.

Starbucks has only reported taxable profit once in 15 years in the UK.

It announced late last year it would pay more corporation tax after a public outcry and an investigation by MPs .



Read more: BBC News - Starbucks pays UK corporation tax for first time since 2009

EU leaders talk tough on tackling Amazon, Google over taxes

Tax evasion and money laundering

Britain, France and Germany called for stricter rules to stop companies such as Google, Apple and Amazon aggressively avoiding taxes in austerity bitten Europe, while acknowledging they had done nothing unlawful.

At a summit to discuss energy and tax policy, the leaders of the three largest EU countries took theopportunity at news conferences to lament the impact of corporate tax avoidance, following several cases involving U.S. firms.

The issue has hit a nerve in Europe where many countries are cutting back on social spending and squeezing workers in order to reduce national deficits and debt.

Most recently a U.S. Senate report found that Apple Inc had paid just 2 percent tax on $74 billion in overseas income, largely by exploiting a loophole in Ireland's tax code.

"We cannot accept that a certain number of companies can put themselves in situations where they escape paying taxes in ways that are legal," French President Francois Hollande said.

"We must coordinate at a European level, harmonize our rules and come up with strategies to stop this."
British Prime Minister David Cameron, who has put tax at the top of the agenda for a meeting of the G8 in Ireland next month, was equally clear about the need for coordination steps.

"There is a real chance of seeing the sort of international action that we need to fix this problem," he said. "You can't do it on your own, you have to have that international action and that is why I think today has been a bit of a breakthrough."

France and Britain in particular have grown concerned by the sheer scale of the legal tax schemes.


Read more: EU leaders talk tough on tackling Amazon, Google over taxes | Reuters

EU leaders in drive against tax evasion at Brussels summit - by Laurence Peter

EU leaders say they are committed to tackling tax evasion and will push for global action to curb banking secrecy.

The president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, said there was a "strong political will" in Europe to make tax systems fairer.

He said the EU would draft tougher rules this year on banking transparency. He was speaking after summit talks in Brussels.  A key goal is to prevent multinational firms exploiting legal loopholes.

Tax evasion and avoidance cost EU states 1tn euros ($1.3tn; £0.85tn) a year - more than was spent on healthcare in 2008.

The EU is now promising action against "aggressive tax planning" - that is, the complex yet legal accounting tricks used by some companies to minimise their tax payments.

EU leaders also want global standards on exchanging bank account data. The issue will be high on the agenda of a summit of the G8 industrialised nations in Northern Ireland next month.

Read more: BBC News - EU leaders in drive against tax evasion at Brussels summit

EU Faces Tough Battle to Curb Tax Avoidance and Evasion - by Christoph Pauly and Christoph Schult

German BASF, the world's largest chemical group, is primarily known for its paints, state-of-the-art plastics and perhaps its natural gas dealings with Russia. The down-to-earth managers at the company's headquarters in Germany's Palatinate region have occasionally criticized the greedy banking sector, but otherwise have quietly gone about their business of generating billions in profits. But innovation isn't the only source of BASF's profitability.

The chemical group, based in Ludwigshafen in southwestern Germany, has a large tax department, whose work consists partly in moving money around between continents. But now the company has discovered a tax haven right at home in Europe.

In addition to a large plant, the company operates the BASF Belgium Coordination Center in Antwerp. Some 160 employees at the center spend a portion of their time searching for legal ways to reduce BASF's tax bill. In 2011, the company paid taxes on its many millions in profits at a rate of only 2.6 percent.

BASF is by far not the only company to take advantage of favorable tax conditions in a neighboring EU country to improve its bottom line. Volkswagen, currently the most profitable company in Germany, was even greedier. In 2012, Belgian subsidiary Volkswagen Group Services paid no taxes at all on profits of €153 million, and in the previous year it raked in €141 million in tax-free profits -- and it was all completely legal.

Again and again, major European multinationals manage to take advantage of loopholes in national tax laws. They outwit the tax authorities in different EU countries by moving around their capital and profits, and not just to faraway tax havens in the Caribbean, but to nearby countries like Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands.

There has never been a more favorable time for tax reform. Europeans are outraged over several cases of high-profile tax fugitives, including that of FC Bayern President Uli Hoeness in Germany, who stashed away millions in Switzerland, and French actor Gérard Depardieu, who acquired houses in Belgium and Mordovia, as well as Russian citizenship, to avoid paying taxes in France.

Nevertheless, there are strong national forces resisting change, as was evident at a meeting of EU finance ministers last Tuesday. Their goal was to adopt a guideline on the taxation of interest income, but Luxembourg and Austria refused to play along. As a result, tax flight is still possible with the help of anonymous foundations, life insurance policies and other income from capital.

Read more: EU Faces Tough Battle to Curb Tax Avoidance and Evasion - SPIEGEL ONLINE

USA - Apple - Tax Evasion: "A Rose By Any Other Name Is Still A Rose Mr. Cook".

Apple Chairman Timothy Cook defended his company before the US Congress yesterday, denying that his company used “gimmicks” to dodge billions in corporate taxes.

An earlier US Senate report found that three of Apple's subsidiaries in Ireland have no official tax residence, meaning they pay little or no taxes to any government.

One entity, Apple Operations International, made up 30 percent of the company's total worldwide net income from 2009 to 2011 but did not pay any corporate income tax to any government during that time period, the report said.

The company also used cost-sharing agreements to shift billions of dollars in economic intellectual property rights to its offshore subsidiaries, according to the report. But the legal rights to its intellectual property remained in the U.S., allowing the company to take advantage of strong U.S. legal protections, the investigators said.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the panel's ranking member, accused Apple of being one of the largest tax avoiders in the US.

“By engaging in these elusive corporate strategies aimed at deferring and reducing tax payments, Apple’s tax department has given new meaning to the company’s old slogan, quote: ‘Think different,’" he said.

What Mr. Cook did not say was that his company used legally established tax loopholes by foreign countries such as Ireland to avoid paying higher US taxes. Clever accounting, maybe, but  whatever way you turn the coin ", a Rose by any other name is still a Rose ".

EU-Digest