#Investments Archives - Law firm Finance Business Service: offshore registration, tax planning, legal services

Analysis of exchange of tax information and investment in exchange for citizenship, taking into account the first results of the discussion organized by the OECD

Published: Вячеслав Иваненко | 24.05.2018 |

Back in the first quarter of 2018, namely on February 19, 2018, a draft of advisory document was published on the official website of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which called on all interested parties to join the discussion on the OECD strategy for combating the loopholes on using the Common Reporting Standard (CRS, Single standard of tax information exchange) in the “citizenship by the investment” (CBI - granting citizenship in exchange for investments) and “residence by the investment” (RBI - granting a residence permit in exchange for investments). To date, more than 70 jurisdictions in the world offer these schemes. On April 17, 2018, a 96-page document was published on the OECD website (PUBLIC INPUT RECEIVED ON MISUSE OF RESIDENCE BY INVESTMENT SCHEMES TO CIRCUMVENT THE COMMON REPORTING STANDARD), which, in fact, summarized the first results of the discussion and the contents of the official letters to the organization. More than 20 structures were the speakers, including: AFME office in London (Association of Financial Markets in Europe, it brings together the largest agents in the capital markets in the region); Italian...

Vehicles as an investment from a non-resident

Published: Алексей Рабышко | 02.05.2018 |

Recently, the Internet is full of information that 2018 is the latest year when it is possible to purchase a vehicle that has been used for “preferential excise tax”. As it is known, from 01.08.2016, the Law of Ukraine of May 31, No. 1389-19 on the stimulation and development of the market of second-hand vehicles, came into force. This law is valid until December 31, 2018 and provides for a significant reduction in excise tax rates for the import of used cars, subject to special conditions and restrictions. We, in turn, are talking about the acquisition of a non-used and completely new car, using a ready-made business tool - a non-resident company. The starting point of our acquisition is, in fact, the choice of a vehicle. In this case, the higher the cost of the car (its class), the more significant the saving will be. So, in stages: Choice of a vehicle. There are many online resources where you can have a great time choosing a vehicle. As an example, here is www.lexus.com. On this site, you can easily find the model you are interested in and choose the equipment that suits your needs. Perhaps, it will be necessary to enter the so-called postal code to search for the...

European Regulatory Authorities Publish ICO Hazard Notifications

Published: Olena Vydysh | 29.11.2017 |

ICO (Initial coin offering) is a form of attracting investments in the form of selling a fixed number of new units of cryptocurrency, received with a single or accelerated emission. In the middle of November, the European financial regulators, including ESMA (the European Securities and Markets Authority), the Belgian FSMA (the Financial Services and Markets Authority) and the Dutch AFM (the Authority for the Financial Markets), issued warnings about risks for the investors and rules applicable to the companies participating in the ICO. The market of so-called cryptocurrencies has heated up. The approximate total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies has increased from $ 18 billion in early 2017 to staggering $ 200 billion by the time of writing this article. Needless to say, some people were worried about this hype, and not only the European financial regulators. ICO is the key concept of cryptocurrency as a type of “crowdsale” (“crowd” and “sale”) where the project developers offer a new type of cryptocurrency (also called “token” or “coin”) using the distributed ledger technology. Cryptocurrency can acquire various characteristics based on the...

Gambling Reform in Malta

Published: Olena Vydysh | 27.10.2017 |

After conducting a series of consultations with the public and interested persons, technical studies and assessments of the financial and economic consequences, the Government of Malta intends to carry out a full reform of the current legislative framework regulating gaming activities. The proposed reform implies the abolition of all current legislation regulating gaming, and the introduction of a single law - the Gaming Act. The law will enable the competent minister to publish the rules and also give authority to the relevant regulatory body (Malta Gaming Authority - hereinafter “MGA”) to publish the Directives and other regulations if necessary, thereby ensuring timely and flexible interventions, especially with regard to technical specifications and processes. Within the framework of optimizing the supervision and modernization of the existing gaming infrastructure, the main state priority in the gambling sphere will be the flexibility of the regulator in the decision-making process and the reduction of the unnecessary regulatory burden, as well as the simultaneous strengthening of supervision in the spheres of the highest risk. One of the main changes in the course...

New european legislation on regulation of financial services markets will soon come into effect

Published: Olena Vydysh | 29.09.2017 |

On January 3, 2018, a new MiFIDII will come into force, significantly changing the existing requirements on regulating the financial markets in the EU. We will consider in today's blog what exactly is MiFIDII and how the regulation of the European financial markets will change. The MiFIDII (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) is the common name for a complex network of legislation, which includes two Directives and three EU Regulations, supported by a number of technical standards and guidelines of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). The measures provided for in the Regulations are directly applied in the EU member states. For the implementation of other standards and harmonization of the national legislation, the updated requirements are established by the competent authorities in each Member State. The current MiFID was adopted in 2004 and it operates with small updates of the end of 2007. Thus, the MiFID not only preceded the financial crisis, but it also did not consider many business models and technologies, which today became a common phenomenon. Consequently, there was an extreme need for such an update. When developing the new provisions, the EU...

Application of blockchain technology in field of insurance

Published: Olena Kamenetska | 28.09.2017 | blog

The technology of the distributed registry gives the potential to the companies in different spheres of activity to enable them to work more efficiently, create new business models and launch innovative products. But, naturally, the reasonable question arises: will the technology "Internet finance" be able to justify the arisen agiotage? The Distributed ledger technology (hereinafter referred to as DLT), also known as Blockchain, refers to the innovations that can offer a tremendous potential to the large companies for more efficient operation and better customer service but it is not sufficiently developed yet for such applications. The Distributed registries are common databases that contain digital lists of the transaction records. Their unique feature is that the identical copies of the registry are "distributed" between several hosting and information storage servers (hosts) that check transactions written in the form of "packages" by means of the agreed process. After checking, the "packages" are blocked with a cryptographic "hash" or an alphanumeric string of the fixed size, which allows the hosts to check incoming data but does not allow data recovery. Conceptually, the...

What is initial coin offering and how it works?

Published: Olena Kamenetska | 18.09.2017 |

The developers, businesses and ordinary people are increasingly using the Initial Coin Offering, which is also called the ICO or the sale of tokens to raise capital. Such activities provide fair and legitimate opportunities to attract investment. Nevertheless, new technologies and financial products related to the ICO can be misused to attract investors with the promises of high profitability in the new investment space. Providing this material, we begin a series of articles on crypto-currencies in order to acquaint you with the current issues of regulating a new and actively developing sphere of investment. Virtual coins or tokens are created and distributed using the distributed registry technologies or distributed storage of reliable records (blockchain technology). Recently, the sale of virtual currency through the ICO is more and more popular. The buyers (investors) can use funds to purchase money (for example, US dollars) or virtual money to buy virtual coins or tokens. The creators (promoters) provide the buyers with the information that the capital raised from the sales will be used to finance the development of the digital platform, software or other projects of this...

Changes in immigration law in Czech Republic

Published: Dmitriy Batrakov | 15.09.2017 | blog

Recently, the President of the Czech Republic has adopted the amendments to the Law "On the Residence of foreign citizens" (hereinafter - the Law). The basis for such changes to the Law was the obligation of the implementation of the EU Directives on seasonal employment and permits for the employees transferred within the framework of international concern. However, the bill introduces various measures to combat illegal employment, the problem of which is acute in the Czech Republic. In addition, a number of measures are being introduced for the immigration support of the new investors. The specified changes are the largest since the times of introduction of the institution of the Labor Card in 2014 and they will come into force during August of this year. In view of the fact that the amendments to the Law are directly related to the creation and promotion of business in the Czech Republic, then we will focus on the key points and try to understand them. Some of the changes will affect the certain categories of the citizens who are not the EU citizens and have seasonal employment, as well as the managers, specialists and trainees of the international corporations who have been...

List of organizational and legal forms of non-residents is approved, with which operations will be controlled according to rules of tp

Published: Olena Vydysh | 14.09.2017 |

On July 27, the list of organizational and legal forms of foreign counterparties on the countries / territories was officially published (and therefore entered into force), operations with which can be recognized as controlled for the purpose of control of transfer pricing (TP). This list was approved by the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 480 of July 4 of this year (hereinafter - the List) for the implementation of the provisions of the Tax Code of Ukraine on TP, namely the clause "d" 39.2.1.1 art.39, and it is another criterion for the recognition of the operation as controlled one. If we look more widely, this can be seen as the next step of our government within the framework of global campaign on de-offshoring, namely to fulfill the commitments to implement the BEPS plan (its minimum standard), which Ukraine assumed with the acquisition of an official BEPS membership from 1 January, 2017. The list includes more than 90 organizational and legal forms from 26 countries and territories. The absolute majority of organizational and legal forms on the list are partnerships (about 80% of total amount). There were also some forms of investment funds and...

Improving investment climate in Ukraine

Published: Olena Vydysh | 07.09.2017 |

At the end of June, the President signed a law on removing the barriers for the foreign investors, which amends a number of existing legislative norms. In this publication we try to understand what it means for the investors themselves. So, the main achievements of the law are the establishment of the procedure for obtaining the work permit for a foreign investor at the legislative level, as well as determination of the possibility to obtain a residence by the investor (hereinafter - residence), not only permanent but also temporary. As for the work permit: the law clearly stipulates the procedure, all the necessary documents and requirements. Among the main documents are only four: 1. Application of the employer in the prescribed form 2. Copies of the passport of a foreigner with the translation 3. Color photo of a foreigner 3,5x4,5 4. Draft employment contract with a foreigner The additional documents (listed in the law) are required only for certain categories of the foreigners. It is also important that the law explicitly prohibits authorities demanding any other documents not provided for by law from the foreigners or their employers (both when...

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