When wheelchair bound 'Ironside' star Raymond Burr walked confidently down the aircraft steps at Lod Airport in 1974, the reaction of the Israeli public was something akin to the second coming. Still caught in the long shadow of the Yom Kippur War, Israelis were far closer to Tom Brokaw's 'Greatest Generation' than consumerist 1970s Western…
GILTI until proven simple
Appearing on Johnny Carson's Tonight show in 1975, the ex-governor of California quipped: 'We live in the only country in the world where it takes more brains to figure out your income tax than it does to earn the income.' A little over a decade later, the same gentleman put his pen where his mouth…
Telling it like it isn’t
A rabbi, a priest and the secretary-general of the OECD walk into a bar... Not heard that one before? Read on. Last Wednesday, January 2nd, as the 20th Knesset breathed its last before flatlining in the run-up to a General Election, the Finance Committee approved regulations paving the way for the introduction of the international…
Comfort and joy (for some)
Several years ago I wrote a newspaper article about a fresh addition to the Israeli Income Tax Ordinance that included four subparagraphs. Or, at least, there should have been four subparagraphs. The fact that there were only three made the whole thing toothless. My tongue-in-cheek piece suggested a scenario where the Knesset Finance Committee was…
Wakey-wakey!
It is the morning of the Maths exam that will decide which, if any, university awaits the candidate. He/she suddenly realizes that he/she hasn't even started learning the syllabus. How many of us have periodically woken in a cold sweat from that nightmare in the course of our adult lives? I sometimes feel that, especially…
Bad Cumpany
If, like me, you have been wondering for decades what the European Parliament is there for, wonder no more. Following a recent vote, the august institution is considering setting up an investigations unit to tackle two humongous European fraud schemes named improbably 'cum-cum' and 'cum-ex'. The first warning that something was afoot came in 1992,…
Before our very eyes!
When it comes to aphorisms, 'Oldie but Goodie' is high on my list of suspect examples. Generally quoted by the generation above mine to fill the void of laughter following a particularly hackneyed joke, it only rolls happily off the tongue when served with lashings of irony. Such was my reaction to a ruling published…
It’s just not cricket
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 taxman takes his cut
Initially dubbed 'the war to end all wars', the act of carnage that ended a hundred years ago this week had to later suffer the ignominy of having 'First' stuck at the front of its name. While recognizing the sacrifice of the combatants and the tragedy of 20 million dead, subsequent generations have suggested the…
FANGs ain’t what they used to be
Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google, the tech giants collectively dubbed the FANGs, are hardly going to be digitally quaking in their virtual boots over British Finance Minister Phillip Hammond's Budget announcement last week that he plans imposing a 2% Digital Services Tax on their UK related turnover. Hammond himself admitted it would only be expected…
Tax Break 