Tax avoidance

U.S. companies that make billions of dollars from patents and other intellectual property held offshore would be eligible for a special 12.5 percent tax rate on those earnings under the Senate tax plan.

The days in paradise may be numbered for those seeking refuge from heavy tax burdens in remote islands. Finance ministers representing the world’s largest market vowed to take action following the leak of records exposing prominent members of the global business A-list.

Multinational companies including Apple Inc., Pfizer Inc. and Ford Motor Co. would face a new tax on payments they make to offshore affiliates under the House Republicans’ tax bill—a surprise provision that has stunned tax experts.

House Republicans should slow down their consideration of a tax-overhaul bill after investigative reports Sunday alleged offshore tax-avoidance by U.S. multinational companies including Apple Inc. and Nike Inc., congressional Democrats and tax-advocacy groups said.

A group of seven Senate Democrats and one independent has written a letter to the Financial Accounting Standards Board asking FASB to require multinational corporations to disclose their taxes, profits, and revenues on a country-by-country basis, echoing a recent letter from a group of House lawmakers.

The Internal Revenue Service has needed to significantly cut back a program that automatically followed up with people who failed to file a tax return, due to budget constraints, according to a new report.

Amazon.com Inc. was slapped with a European Union order to pay 250 million euros ($294 million) plus interest in back taxes to Luxembourg as the world’s biggest online retailer became the latest U.S. giant to run afoul of the bloc’s tough rules on government subsidies.

The European Commission will outline on Thursday different options for taxing digital companies as the 28-nation bloc seeks to raise money from an industry that it says provides less than it should to public coffers.

It took two days after Hurricane Irma ripped through the British Virgin Islands, damaging or destroying an estimated 70 percent of the territory’s buildings, for the Caribbean tax haven to start piecing back together its lucrative corporate-registry business.

The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have delayed implementation of the Obama administration’s Section 385 documentation regulations for discouraging corporate tax inversions and earnings stripping until 2019.