Blog

We have previously discussed how the Italian government is leveraging tax incentives to help boost e-invoicing adoption between private companies. After all, B2G e-invoicing has been mandatory in Italy for a couple of years now, but that has not led to a particularly impressive increase in the total amount of B2B e-invoices. Tax incentives that […]

Twenty years after IBM Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in a series of famous chess games, another computer program, AlphaGo by Google DeepMind, won against Lee Sedol, a top professional player in the very complex ancient game of Go. In 2011, between these two landmarks, we saw IBM’s Watson win against former champions in Jeopardy. […]

Bermuda’s Ministry of Finance has launched its Tax Information Reporting Portal, through which Financial Institutions and filers may enroll in and exchange account information pursuant to the Common Reporting Standard (CRS). The Ministry has also published a User Guide for navigating the Portal. It provides an overview of commonly used functionalities within the Portal such […]

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has announced that leadership plans to release a “discussion draft” of their version of the AHCA bill on Thursday June 22^nd^, with a vote to be held on a final bill one week later. The Congressional Budget Office is expected to release a report concerning the Senate bill early next […]

Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) legislation is constantly evolving worldwide as the standard is rolled out around the world. The Sovos Regulatory Analysis team continually monitors new regulations and updates across the globe and publishes them in our Regulatory Feed. Here are some important changes that occurred in recent weeks: OECD Gets First Results from Disclosure […]

Companies should take note of shifting 1099-K thresholds at the state level. The explosive growth of the “sharing economy” — including peer-to-peer business transactions for goods and services — has attracted attention from governments looking for their piece of the market, which is estimated to grow to $335 billion by 2025.  These businesses may have […]

Last week, Sovos issued a new report covering The State of Regulatory Compliance, which details the evolution of technology-driven regulatory trends, as well as how businesses can proactively prepare for the new wave of global compliance obligations. Not surprisingly, the report shines a spotlight on Latin American governments who first introduced initiatives giving governments more […]

The German BZSt (Tax Office) has published an Infobrief to address some final matters before the start of this year’s FATCA filing season. The BZSt online portal will be available for FATCA transmittals beginning on June 19. Both mass data interface (ELMA) and manual data entry will be operational from this date forward. However, the […]

Sovos, a leading provider of tax compliance and reporting software, announced today that it has appointed Peter Russell-Smith to the newly created role of Managing Director, EMEA. In his role, Russell-Smith will lead Sovos operations across the region, where the introduction of transaction-level reporting and tax transparency mandates have sparked a new wave of demand for […]

California recently released an updated version of Publication DE-154, Electronic Funds Transfer Bulk Filer Setup Guide. The purpose of this guide is to provide instruction for payroll agents who use the ACH Debit method to electronically pay the Payroll Tax Deposit using Form DE-88. This publication also provides detailed information on formatting files to submit […]

Two proposals to transform European VAT law have failed to gain approval of the EU’s Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN). Both proposals needed unanimous approval of the delegates to become law. ECOFIN began its meeting of June 16 by debating a proposal that would allow Member States to apply reduced VAT rates to electronic publications. […]

The Spanish Tax Administration (AEAT) recently released a comprehensive set of files, tools, and documents necessary for the full implementation of the Immediate Information Remittance System (SII Version 1.0). As a final test step before actual go-live, AEAT announced that from June 21 through June 29 taxpayers and solution providers may begin submitting SII reports […]

On June 8, 2017, twenty European Union Member States voted to establish a new European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), which will be given broad powers to combat cross-border VAT fraud. The EPPO is envisioned as an independent body with the power to investigate fraud in all participating Member States; it will also be able to […]

On June 12 of 2017, the Italian Tax Authorities (ITA) issued Protocol No. 110418, to further implement the principles of EU administrative cooperation and combating fraud in the field of VAT. The purpose of the new rules is not only to identify potential VAT Fraud, but also to empower the ITA to cancel VAT numbers […]

According to a report from Reuters, the German Economic Ministry has recently been analyzing a possible reduction in the country’s 19% VAT rate, as part of a larger analysis of German trade surpluses. A ministry spokesperson did not deny the report, but stated that a VAT reduction would have a minimal effect on existing surpluses, and that […]

By a vote of 590 to 8, with 10 abstentions, the European Parliament has formally agreed to allow Member States the option of applying reduced VAT rates on electronic books, newspapers and periodicals. This proposal, as put forth by the European Commission, is designed to bring the VAT treatment of e-publications in line with the […]

After nearly two years of negotiations, representatives from the European Commission and Norway initialed an agreement on VAT cooperation in May of 2017. The agreement will facilitate administrative cooperation between the parties, and will provide a legal framework to combat VAT fraud and assist in the recovery of VAT claims. The initialed agreement will officially […]

Earlier this week, the House of Representatives passed the Verify First Act – which would serve as an amendment to the premium tax credit under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and to the premium assistance credit under the proposed American Health Care Act (AHCA). The bill provides that an individual is not entitled to advance […]