Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) has welcomed the Government’s commitment to ‘value creation’ remaining as the basis to decide where and how much to tax multinational companies. But the CIOT cautions that the Government’s push for reforms to factor in the value created by the participation of users in certain digital multinational businesses – for example by posts on social media platforms – when determining which countries those businesses' profits should be taxed in, is likely to be difficult and controversial.

The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) in Scotland has renewed its call for the introduction of an annual Scottish Finance Bill to improve public and parliamentary scrutiny of the devolved taxes.

Commenting on the report, ‘Responsible tax: New rules for Brexit Britain?’, published on Feb 21, 2018 by the thinktank CoVi, CIOT Tax Policy Director John Cullinane said: “This report is a welcome contribution to the debate on the future of UK tax policy, and deserves careful consideration by government.

On February 7, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the 2017 Article IV consultation with Australia.

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) team led by Pritha Mitra, Mission Chief for Malawi, visited Lilongwe from January 31-February 14, 2018 to conduct the 2018 Article IV Consultation and hold discussions with the Malawian authorities on a program supported by the IMF’s Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement.

The following is a statement from Bryan Riley, director of the National Taxpayers Union’s Free Trade Initiative:
"I am hopeful that today’s meeting with lawmakers regarding the national security implications of steel and aluminum imports will further encourage the Trump administration to prioritize and uphold the principles of free trade that have made us one of the world’s most prosperous and secure countries.”

A new study out from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation concludes that the Congressional Budget Office, Congress’ independent budget scorekeeper, has been mis-portraying the cost savings of projects launched by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, with huge consequences for taxpayers.“CBO’s forecast that CMMI would reduce Medicare spending by $45 billion over ten years is flawed,” concluded study author Doug Badger, a former White House and Senate policy adviser who had a key role in developing Medicare Part D. The CBO’s estimates “ascribe unobserved and unobservable savings to projects that CMMI has not yet undertaken (and may never undertake.)”

Groundhog Day took place a week ago and portended six more weeks of winter, but for taxpayers, the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) balance sheets released on Feb 09 brought even chillier news. USPS announced another lackluster financial quarter, which included a loss of $540 million for the first quarter of its fiscal year (October-December 2017). And according to National Taxpayers Union (NTU), the Postal Service may soon be delivering an unwanted package to taxpayers’ doorsteps unless top-to-bottom management and mission reforms are made.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) released a freedom of information document on Feb 09, 2018 that shows the City of Calgary’s city council pension costs were approximately five times that of Edmonton’s council retirement benefits from 2007-2016.

The Internal Revenue Service announced steep declines in tax-related identity theft in 2017, attributing the success to the Security Summit initiatives that help safeguard the nation’s taxpayers on Feb 08.