Last month's news from India, that tax residency certificates would no longer be a must for foreigners claiming treaty benefits, will come as a welcome relief to the finance departments of organizations doing business with that great country. Obtaining certificates of residence can be a pain in the neck, especially when they are needed quickly.…
The Unsatanic Taxes
Nobody who has read Salman Rushdie’s classic ‘Midnight’s Children’ can be indifferent to the juxtaposition of India and Midnight in a phrase or sentence. So, the recent announcement that India’s new GST law (VAT by any other name would smell as sweet) would come into effect, amidst much fanfare, at midnight on July 1 was…
Dial M For Modi
Bored out of my mind on a bus journey through the northeastern city of Sunderland around forty years ago, I involuntarily tuned into one of the working-class conversations going on around me. Not one word. Not one single syllable. They may as well have been talking Polish (which, nowadays, they probably would be). Forget that…
They shoot horses, don’t they?
"It's under starter's orders - and they're off!" 2013 has scarcely made it out of the stalls and two stories are already vying for a place in the Winner's Enclosure at the annual Let's-Knacker-The-Taxpayer Steeplechase. First to gallop off the page and nearly knock out my eye was the disclosure by the Wall Street Journal that the Indian…
India – hitting investors where it hurts
As a sport that dictates: "when you are out you are in" , the vast majority of the world's population may be forgiven for not understanding cricket. Not so the man on the New Delhi Omnibus for whom the game is a way-of-life. While recent cricket scandals have tended to emanate from India's nemesis, Pakistan, a…
Sorry, wrong number
The first to hit the catwalk at the Miss World Tax beauty contest that spanned year-end was Lady Justice New Zealand with a December 12 landmark tax avoidance decision. Following close on her high-tax heels on December 19 was Lady Justice Canada with an insight into the application of the General Anti-Avoidance Rule and only a day later Lady Justice…
Tax Break 