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Back in February 2021, Saudi Arabia announced plans to stop awarding government contracts to companies whose regional headquarters are not located in the Kingdom as of January 1, 2024, barring some exceptions. Source:https://www.khaleejtimes.com/hi/business/saudi-arabia-offers-30-year-tax-break-for-companies-moving-regional-hqs-to-riyadh The Saudi program aims to attract international companies to establish regional headquarters in Saudi Arabia. Thus, it plans to make the Kingdom the first choice for companies in the Middle East and North Africa region, with benefits and unique support conditions. This is a joint initiative between the Ministry of Investment and the Royal Commission of Riyadh. Saudi Arabia's Minister of Investment, Khaled Al-Falih, said the program has attracted 200 foreign companies so far. And state news agency SPA announced that the package of tax incentives for regional headquarters includes a 0% corporate income tax rate and a 0% withholding tax rate on income from the approved activities of these companies for 30...

The country's government has adopted a rule designed to oblige every taxpayer to report in a declaration on the location and property of offshore companies. This is designed to improve honesty in income reporting and to toughen the fight against tax evasion. The bill was proposed by the Portuguese Tax and Customs Administration. It was approved during the adoption of amendments to the 2024 budget. Thus, taxpayers will be required to show all income sources when filing an IRS Model 3 return. It is mandatory to provide information on personal income taxes that exceed €500 and also on all other assets. The service believes that they do not receive enough information about the property and financial condition of the taxpayer, and the bill will help correct this. Reports are submitted from April 1 to June...

Swift has already connected domestic payment systems across Europe to provide full transparency and end-to-end tracking of instant cross-border transfers destined for the EU. The European Payments Board's One-Leg-Out Instant Credit Transfer (OCT Inst) scheme was launched this week. It enables you to process payments to and from Europe 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The launch of the system follows a successful proof of concept earlier this year, during which Swift partnered with European payment system Iberpay, Spanish banks BBVA, CaixaBank and Santander, commercial banks from Australia (ANZ and National Australia Bank), Brazil (Itaú Unibanco) and the Great of Britain (Lloyds Banking Group). Dozens of international payments have been successfully delivered to Spanish accounts within seconds. Financial institutions see OCT Inst as an opportunity to take advantage of domestic instant payment systems on a global scale. "Interoperability is at the heart of everything we do at Swift to deliver our strategy of frictionless instant payments for all, and will be key to achieving the G20's cross-border payments goals," said Marianne Demarchi, CEO of Swift Europe. - EPC's OCT...

Within six months, new versions of the law “On Virtual Assets” and the bill on taxation of cryptocurrency transactions should appear in Ukraine. People's Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Chairman of the Blockchain4Ukraine MFO Alexey Zhmerenetsky spoke about this during the Binance Super Meetup in Lviv. “Ukraine is not yet a member of the EU, and the regulation provided for in MiCA is more complex. In the current conditions, when Ukraine does not have a large crypto market and capital on it, the implementation of strict requirements will make our country less competitive,” Zhmerenetsky said. The working group plans to prepare a version of legislative regulation that will be a compromise between the proposals of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission and the Ministry of Digital Development and the wishes of the FATF and the European...

To promote international cooperation in the field of taxation, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution establishing a UN tax convention. 125 member states voted for the resolution, 48 voted against and 9 abstained. The resolution calls for the establishment of an intergovernmental committee to develop protocols and measures to combat illicit tax-related financial flows. The Committee should consist of no more than 20 members, elected on the basis of balanced geographical representation to ensure equal representation of the five UN regional groups. This was preceded by a proposal from a group of African countries to create an alternative model of international cooperation in the tax field. Because, in their opinion, the OECD models have undermined the global tax system and allowed large companies to evade paying taxes at the expense of their own citizens. The US, UK and EU countries were against the resolution and proposed changes that would have reduced the proposal to a simple declaration, but all of them were...

The President of the Czech Republic signed a consolidation law, the main objective of which is to reduce the budget deficit. It is planned to amend 65 laws. Tax benefits will mainly be removed to reduce the burden on the budget. Most provisions are scheduled to take effect as early as January 1. The main changes in the tax sphere will affect corporate tax, VAT, personal income tax, social contributions, accounting, excise duty on alcohol and cigarettes, real estate tax, tax on gambling and slot machines. For example, it is expected that the corporate tax rate will increase from 19% to 21%, as well as the introduction of three VAT rates: 0%, a reduced 12% (instead of the previously existing 10% and 15%) and a basic...

From December 1, the Chinese authorities are introducing a visa-free regime for citizens of five EU countries (Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, France and Germany) and Malaysia. This was reported by the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mao Ning. "China has decided to expand the scope of the unilateral visa-free regime to facilitate the movement of people between China and the outside world for the benefit of intensive development and maintaining a high level of openness," Mao Ning said. Visa-free travel for these countries will be valid on an experimental basis until November 30, 2024. The official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs added that representatives of the listed states will be able, having a regular passport, without a visa, to make business and tourist trips to China, and to visit relatives and friends for 15...

In November, the Egyptian Tax Authority (ETA) announced a new tax regime for companies and individual entrepreneurs. The purpose of this innovation is to create favorable conditions for business development. The new tax is a one-off payment that consists of annual lump sum payments or flat rates for start-up companies based on annual turnover. Taxpayers whose annual turnover does not exceed EGP 10 million will be able to benefit from the benefits and procedures provided by the Law on the Development of Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises. This will make tax administration easier for startups. The bill is now awaiting approval by the Cabinet of...

The accession of Cyprus to the Schengen area and the visa-free regime program are among the main priorities of the Cyprus Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the next year. In the summer, Cyprus joined the Schengen Information System (SIS II), which is one of the final and mandatory requirements for a candidate country. SIS II is the largest public security information system in Europe, allowing the exchange of information between national border control authorities, customs and police. Accession to Schengen requires verification according to five criteria, which relate to the protection of personal data, interaction of the Cypriot police with the police departments of the Schengen countries, accession to the Schengen Information System (SIS), border control of the external borders of Schengen, resolution of consular issues (issuance of Schengen...