Japan's Mount Fuji REUTERS/Toru Hanai
Welcome to the top tax and accounting headlines from Reuters and other sources.
* Whistleblower Joseph Insinga suing IRS for not being paid a reward. Lisa Rein – The Washington Post. Joseph A. Insinga was the ultimate whistleblower. The former executive with a Dutch bank says he divulged to the Internal Revenue Service details about how for years his employer helped U.S. companies dodge taxes. Now Insinga is taking tax authorities to court for failing to give him a reward that he says he is owed by the federal government. Insinga filed a whistleblower claim with the IRS in 2007, a year after Congress passed a law to help the government uncover tax cheats by encouraging informants to come forward. Those with inside information could receive up to 15 to 30 percent of any taxes, fines, penalties and interest the IRS collected from a taxpayer who was illegally sheltering taxes, usually a corporation. Insinga says he is entitled to a portion of the money the IRS collected from the taxpayers he exposed. He’s confident that at least one company, and maybe more, was forced to pay taxes based on his information. He had alleged that Rabobank Group, where he worked as an executive for more than a decade, helped seven companies avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes through offshore partnerships and other corporate schemes. Link
* Delay EU carbon levy, says air industry. Peter Marsh, Joshua Chaffin and Simon Rabinovitch – The Financial Times. Seven of Europe’s leading aviation companies have joined forces to warn that the European Union’s plans to charge for carbon pollution are jeopardizing 2,000 jobs and billions of dollars of orders from China. Airbus and six large European airlines said the plan to bring global airlines into the EU emissions trading scheme for carbon dioxide, which the industry has steadfastly opposed, is creating an “intolerable” threat to the European aviation industry by opening up the possibility of trade battles with China, the US and Russia. The EU’s plan to regulate the output of carbon dioxide, as part of the effort to combat global warming, has stirred concern in the European aviation industry. Airbus – which employs more than 50,000 people across Europe – argues the proposals will damage competitiveness at a time of economic weakness, wants the EU to “put on hold” the extension of the scheme to airlines until a global plan for regulating carbon emissions by airlines can be agreed. Link
* Clegg forced to go soft on ‘tycoon tax’ Kiran Stacey, Helen Warrell and Vanessa Houlder – The Financial Times. Nick Clegg has been forced to soften proposals for a “tycoon tax” less than 48 hours after announcing it as a flagship policy at his Liberal Democrat party’s spring conference. The deputy prime minister said on Saturday that he wanted to set a minimum effective tax rate, making sure high earners did not use various loopholes to pay less than 20 per cent of their income in tax. The Treasury was surprised by Mr Clegg’s explicit mention of a minimum tax rate, as they had expected his speech to focus on general anti-avoidance measures. People close to George Osborne, the chancellor, told the Financial Times a minimum rate was not being considered. Link
Some important events in the week ahead:
Monday, March 19 – Wednesday, March 21
The Institute of Internal Auditors will hold its general audit management conference. in Orlando, Florida.
Monday, March 19 – Friday, March 23
International Accounting Standards Board meeting in London.
