The history of ever expanding horizon of service tax law in India has extensive sub-chapters of its own. The levy being unique and unprecedented in the country, the Finance Act, 1994 has made a number of experiments for the levy and collection of service tax from various sectors. Sometimes owing...

This paper investigates the consequences of a series of alternative international tax designs on the strategy of a multinational enterprise regarding the cross border distribution of its investment and the choice of its financing behavior. We start with a world where no international tax rules...

The globalization of financial markets has required the use of common reporting standards, notably the IFRSs. These are impacting the accounting systems of many countries. However, accounting systems are also often used for national tax reporting. This creates a divergence in the reporting needs...

In his paper titled ‘Dividend Distribution Tax – Some Nuances' published in 339 ITR (J) 52 the learned author has dwelled upon certain aspects of tax on distributed profits under Section 115O of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (‘1961 Act'). In 339 ITR (J) 52 the author referred contrary decisions...

The unbridled intent to maximize the return for shareholders has earned an enviable place for the tax-planning fraternity in corporate structuring deliberations. More often than not, elevating the trend akin to an axiomatic proposition, cross-border transactions are tested for tax-efficiency...

Anecdotal evidence often suggests that multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating in developing countries “exploit their multinationality” to avoid paying taxes to host governments. This article explores the concept of “responsible tax” as a corporate social responsibility (CSR) issue...

The economic downturn has created an investment market in which some tax-advantaged strategies have become favored. To avoid taxable diversification, taxpayers have turned to exchange funds. Through the rules in sections 351, 721, and 368, taxpayers can diversify a single stock position without...

The exigibility of a transaction to multiple levies has always been a contentious issue. Vivisection of composite contracts to subject various elements therein to diverse levies is a quintessential reflection of this trend exhibited by tax-authorities. The issue is more or less settled in the...

U.S.-based multinational corporations are calling for a tax holiday that would allow them to repatriate their foreign earnings at little tax cost. With over $1 trillion in earnings trapped offshore and untaxed by the U.S., these corporations characterize the proposed repatriation holiday as a...

Low market rates call for special types of debt instruments. This report discusses the tax questions presented by several of those instruments, including fixed-to-floating rate instruments, range accrual debt instruments, and callable step-up instruments. The authors note several ambiguities in...