Concerns have been raised about the privacy issues surrounding information provided to the Australian Tax Office by tippers and whistleblowers concerning tax evasions. Last week the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) released Community Intelligence - Collecting and Processing Tip-offs, a performance audit of the Australian Tax Office’s (ATO) treatment of tax information provided by anonymous tippers on other taxpayers. The report revealed the ATO’s procedure of indefinitely retaining all information provided by tippers, even if an investigation proves the data to be false ... Read More

A new report has been released, profiling the numbers and affluence of high net worth individuals (HNWI) worldwide. The report also investigates the effect of the global economic downturn on HNWIs' choice of investments. Last week, Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management and international consultancy firm Capgemini released The 14th Annual World Wealth Report 2010. The publication investigates global levels and distributions of individuals with investible incomes exceeding USD 1 million. According to the publication, the global population of HNWIs grew by 17.1 percent ... Read More

The French Government has indicated that it intends to cut selected national tax breaks and reduce public spending over the next three years, in order to lower the national deficit to appropriate EU levels. Speaking in at a radio interview on June 27th Francois Baroin, Budget Minister of France, revealed the French Government’s intentions to improve the national budget by over EUR 10 billion in 2011 through tax measures and public spending cuts. The move is aimed at reducing the Government deficit to ... Read More

A European Commission (EC) debate on a proposed European Union-wide Carbon Tax has proven fruitless, with the Commission opting to delay a decision into the future. On June 23rd the European Commission held an initial debate on a Carbon Tax proposal brought forward by Algirdas Semeta, EC Commissioner on Taxation. The debate resulted in the EC only resolving to engage in an impact assessment of an EU-wide Carbon Tax system, with no headway made towards dismissing the tax or initiating a legislative approval ... Read More

Philip Daniel, Deputy Head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) tax policy devision, has revealed that he supports the Australian Government's intention to instate a new 40 percent tax rate on mining industry profits. On June 23rd Philip Daniel spoke at an Australian Institute of Chartered Accountants conference and gave his view on the country's current dispute over the proposed Resource Super Profit Tax (RSPT). Phillip Donald said that he believed that a recent mining-sector sponsored media campaign had misinterpreted the possible ... Read More