G-20 Sets Sights on Tax Evaders

One of the main topics to emerge during this year's G-20 meeting has been multinational companies' use of highly complex tax minimisation systems. 

The US Senate estimates revenue losses from tax evasion by U.S.-based firms and individuals at around 100 billion dollars a year. In many other countries, the sums run into billions of euros.

China has agreed to join the international effort to combat tax evasion by signing the convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters to share tax records.

Russia's finance minister Anton Siluanov said that leaders of the world's 20 largest economies are indignant over the policies of cross-border giants like Google and Amazon, who "make money in one country" but pay lower taxes elsewhere. He said that G-20 leader have agreed on a plan to take on multinational companies who tuck away their profits in offshore jurisdictions.  The plan includes ways to close loopholes and allow countries to tax profits held in offshore subsidiaries. 
 

China's Green Initiative

 

 

Jing Nealis - Global Tax Director @ Suntech Power

China’s State Council released a report announcing measures to facilitate the enhancement of domestic green industries. The plan seeks to raise domestic demand and revise its economic structure. China’s 2012 industrial development plan calls for the increase of the value of environmental protection industries to RMB 4.5 trillion (US$ 729.7billion) by 2015 – an average annual increase of 15%.

The State Council also promised to encourage technological innovation and raise the demand for green and energy-saving products in relation to environmental protection.

This plan gives great hope for the struggling Chinese solar industry!

 

Shanghai - My First Expat Assignment

In 2009 while I was working in the international tax team at the Deloitte Chicago office, the opportunity came up for me to have an expat assignment in Shanghai.

 

I cherished the opportunity to spend some time working in China. Originally I am from Beijing and after many years of being in the USA, acquiring my master's degree in accounting, working with an asset management firm and then with Deloitte, I thought it was a good point in my career to spend some time in China.

 

I had a great work experience on this expat assignment, it was great being in the middle of all those exciting deals. I had the opportunity to work directly with a partner in the firm who was also expatriated from the US to the Deloitte Shanghai office and this was also his first expat assignment. In addition to my professional skills, my Chinese language skills and the understanding of both Western and Chinese cultures gave me the ability to contribute great value to our team when serving US multinational clients operating in China and Chinese outbound investment into the USA.

 

I gained unique experiences from working on US-China cross-border transactions, I saw the rapid growth of China's outbound investment projects and US multinational clients expansion within China. I was very fortunate to be in the right place at the right time, I gained so much practical experience in a year that would have taken somebody sitting in the US office years to gain.

 

This was truly an international work experience, as I not only worked with the Deloitte Chinese & American colleagues but also with colleagues from Canada, Germany, France, UK, Hong Kong and other places.

 

Shanghai is an amazing city! It is filled with an exciting energy that I haven’t found anywhere else in the world. Though Shanghai and Beijing are very different cities with very different local cultures, I greatly enjoyed learning about the city and its unique culture. During my year-long stay there I felt completely at home walking on the old streets nicely shaded by trees planted by the French in the 1800's, looking over the Huangpu river from roof-top restaurants in converted buildings built 100 years before along the Bund into Pudong where some of the world’s tallest skyscrapers now stand, I enjoyed learning a little bit of the local Shanghaies dialect, and enjoying local cuisine such as Xiaolongbao. Shanghai is truly a place where east meets the west and where modern blends with vintage.

 

The time spent in Shanghai was too short, a year later I was chosen to be the inaugural member and the US desk manager of Deloitte's Asia Pacific International Core of Excellence (APICE) which is based in Hong Kong and provides tax advisory services to multinational companies doing business in Asia or vice versa. I felt sad to leave Shanghai, but Hong Kong was a new adventure for my career and life, so I was excited to take on the new challenging role!