Tax developments or tax-related items reported this week include the following.
Americas
- Canada: The Department of Finance announced a new temporary rebate would essentially remove the goods and services tax (GST) (and federal portion of the harmonized sales tax (HST)) on qualifying new rental apartments. Draft legislation has not yet been released.
- Colombia: The Supreme Tax Court provisionally suspended the tax authority’s interpretation that the taxable person for purposes of the single-use plastic products tax is the producer or importer of single-use plastic products, because the tax authority failed to refer to or apply the definition of producer and importer contained in article 50 of Law 2277 of 2022, resulting in a violation of the law.
Asia Pacific
- Australia: The New South Wales budget for 2023-2024 proposes stamp duty and land tax changes.
- Australia: Treasury opened a consultation on a single average benchmark recovery rate for use by businesses to calculate and claim excise refunds on returned duty-paid petroleum recovered through vapor recovery units (VRUs). The consultation closes on 3 October 2023.
- Bahrain: The National Bureau for Revenue (NBR) released the first version of the value added tax (VAT) deregistration manual for taxpayers in Bahrain.
- India: The Bombay High Court held that an Indian taxpayer was entitled to a refund of taxes paid under protest on behalf of a nonresident U.S. company not subject to tax in India.
- Pakistan: A KPMG report summarizes federal and provincial sales tax withholding requirements in Pakistan.
- Philippines: The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) issued amended guidance on VAT-related issues for registered business enterprises (RBEs)..
- Thailand: The Thai Cabinet approved the Ministry of Finance’s proposal to maintain the reduced VAT rate of 7% for another year—from 1 October 2023 to 30 September 2024.
- UAE: The Ministry of Finance published a cabinet decision on the application of a new reverse charge mechanism on the local supplies of electronic devices, for VAT purposes.
Europe
- Belgium: The Constitutional Court held that the domestic provisions implementing Article 8ab(5) of DAC6 are invalid in so far as they require intermediaries subject to legal professional privilege to notify other intermediaries who are not their clients.
- France: Officials from the French tax administration announced a new draft implementation calendar of the country’s electronic invoicing (e-invoicing) mandate.
- Netherlands: Tax measures in the 2024 Tax Plan concern corporate income tax, individual income tax, VAT, payroll taxes, and environmental taxes.
- Switzerland: Import duties on almost all industrial goods will be unilaterally eliminated effective from 1 January 2024.
- UK: The First-tier Tribunal dismissed an appeal by a platform company facilitating the sale of academic papers (essays, coursework, etc.), finding that the company was acting as principal as opposed to an agent for VAT purposes.
United States
State and local tax
- Tennessee: The Tennessee Court of Appeals recently affirmed a chancery court’s conclusion that a taxpayer qualified for an industrial machinery sales tax exemption.
Source: KPMG
