Dr Benjamin S. Cortez
Graham Busch
The newly formed XLNC Tax Focus Group (‘TFG’) held its first meeting on 15 September 2018 in Madrid during the inaugural XLNC conference. The TFG – one of various newly formed focus groups – strives to be a strong network of tax practitioners within the XLNC network, actively addressing and thereby helping to solve tax related issues. Prior to the Madrid conference the TFG had held a joint conference call on 21 June 2018 with strong participation (Minutes of the conference call are available upon request, also for non-TFG members), organised by the co-chairmen of the TFG Graham Busch (Gerald Edelman, UK) and Dr Benjamin Cortez (Schlecht und Partner, Germany).
The TFG meeting in Madrid was opened with a hearty welcome to the participants by Graham Busch. Summarising the results of the previous joint conference call, it was reconfirmed that quarterly calls will be held and with a growing TFG membership, consideration of the timing for various time-zones will be given. The dates of the conference calls will be 29 November 2018 and 28 February 2019 prior to the Vienna conference. Interested members should contact the TFG to receive the dial-in details. As a result of discussions about the means and ways the TFG members can work together, a closed LinkedIn TFG group has been set up to foster a more direct and ongoing interaction amongst the members. Interested members should also contact the TFG to be invited into the LinkedIn group. Apart from organisational topics, four technical presentations were held during the TFG meeting.
Dr Alessandro Stradi (ABACO, Italy) held a presentation on the Italian Branch Exemption, issued on 28 August 2017 by the Italian Tax Authorities. The underlying purpose of the rule is to allow Italian taxpayers to opt for the exemption of the profits and losses pertaining to their foreign branch and thereby avoid double taxation and increase the competitiveness of Italian companies in overseas markets. Sonal Shah (Gerald Edelman, UK) illustrated the benefits of the UK LLP as a viable international trading entity. Specifically, for non-UK-residents the UK LLP based tax transparent treatment is an interesting option for channelling international trading. With an increase in international labour mobility, associated taxrelated issues are increasing. In his presentation, Timothy Quinn (Azure, Australia) highlighted the pitfalls and opportunities of remote workers across borders, illustrating the associated risks and showing how awareness of these is essential for the benefit of our clients.
With a trending German real estate market and a strong domestic economy, inbound real estate investments into Germany have recently increased. Dr Benjamin Cortez described the tax considerations of inbound real estate investments into Germany. Interested members should feel free to contact the noted presenters or the TFG for the presentation slides or to address any questions or issues they may have on these topics. All inquiries can be directed to Graham Busch and/or Dr Benjamin Cortez.
XLNC MAGAZINE | No. 02 | November 2018