ITE will provide complete tax information by showing the overall tax impact of a transaction on both the payer and the receiver.

Transcription

1 International Tax Expert (ITE) is a full-feature software tool on Checkpoint that provides advanced tax rate look up tables, optimization of withholding taxes and a cross-border tax calculator. International Tax Expert features: Display all domestic and treaty tax rates for 120 countries for calculating the total tax costs in a given cross-border transaction, including withholding tax rates, effective tax rates, tax credit methods, and matching credit rates. Access key tax facts with optional links to IBFD s regional comprehensive analyses, including Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East, the Caribbean, Africa, Canada and China, as well as IBFD's Worldwide Tax Treaties database. Use the Withholding Tax Minimizer tool to minimize withholding taxes. ITE will consider all possible transaction combinations (up to millions of combinations) and display the top 20 lowest withholding tax routes. Quickly calculate tax costs and benefits of a cross-border transaction. Instantly create tax rate memos with supporting documents such as treaty articles and calculations details. Stay up-to-date on the latest developments in regulations from various countries by reading ITE's comprehensive monthly newsletter. It includes sections covering Approved Changes, Proposed Changes, and Treaty Developments. ITE will provide complete tax information by showing the overall tax impact of a transaction on both the payer and the receiver. ITE covers the following countries: 2011 Thomson Reuters/RIA. All rights reserved.

2 Access ITE: 1. Access International Tax Expert under GO TO in the Search pane in the International Practice Area: 2. Click Continue. 2

3 Accessing TME from the Orbitax Site: 1. Go to 2. Enter your user name and password. 3. Click Login. 3

4 The International Tax Expert Home page is displayed: International Tax Expert has numerous features and functions: Library Search: Suppose you wanted a general synopsis of Ireland s tax laws. You have several ways to get this information for Ireland or for any of the other countries in the database: (Please refer to the Home page--see above.) Under What would you like to do today?, you will find ten different selections in the drop-down menu. Select Find key country tax facts, which will take you to a screen to select Ireland or another country. Or you can select tax facts under Library at the top right of the Home screen. Another rich international resource is the ITE Library: Snapshots 1. Select Library from the purple toolbar at the top of the screen, which will make three Library options available: 2. Select Snapshots. 4

5 3. Click the blue circle icon next to Click here to enter another search to find information about another country (that is, the country that s listed when you open this window). 4. Click the radio button next to Ireland or any other country listed in the blue box. (The name of your elected country will appear in the Choose a country field.) 5. Then click OK. 5

6 6. Click Search to see a snapshot of Ireland s tax system. Notice that the screen opens on the General tab: 7. Select the Tax Rates tab. 6

7 The Tax Rates screen displays current, future, and historical rates: 8. Click Government Sites to view list of government tax and related websites from the country you are currently viewing. 9. Select Ministry of Finance. 7

8 In this example, key data and links from Ireland s Department of Finance are displayed: 10. Return to the Government Sites screen and select Tax Administration: 8

9 In this example, the Irish Tax and Customs screen is displayed: 11. Return to the Tax Rates tab and select IBFD Analysis to see more specific information about the country you have selected. 9

10 12. Select 1. Corporate Income Tax. To read extended commentary about Ireland s corporate income tax, select one of the available resources: 10

11 Tax Treaties In the ITE Library, you can also find this international tax information in the Tax Treaties section: 1. Select Library from the Library toolbar at the top of the screen: 2. Select Tax Treaties to compare the treaties of one country with those of another country. 3. Chose a country for Entity 1 and then for Entity 2: 4. Click Search. 11

12 In this example, a search for a tax treaty between South Korea and Japan revealed that a treaty was signed on 10/8/1998 (effective date: 1/1/2000). Notice the red arrows pointing to the newspaper icon to the right of each of the selected countries. Click this icon for a link to news about each country: 5. Click TREATY to view the treaty: 12

13 Newsletter In the ITE Library, you can also find out about tax law changes around the world: 1. Select Newsletter from the Library toolbar at the top of the screen: 2. Select from several archived International Tax Expert newsletters: 13

14 Rates Search Selecting Rates provides four options for viewing or calculating tax rates for various countries: Corporate Search: 1. Select Corporate to calculate the effective corporate tax rate for a country. 2. For this example, select India from the Choose a country drop-down menu: 3. Click Search. 14

15 4. View and compare three entity types for India: (Retained, Distributed, and Capital Gains): Note: Click the Footnote icon to read a footnote. (See red arrow above, which points to the icon that opened the footnote about the surtax rate.) Also, notice the newspaper links next to each of the displayed entities. Edit the Tax Rate: If a document symbol appears in the Rate Memo column (see arrow in graphic above), you can edit that tax rate and print a report of the results: 1. Click the document symbol in the Rate Memo column to open the following window: 2. Click Check here to edit rates. 3. Change the value in any of the four fields (here: from 0 to 50 in the Surtax Based On Statutory Tax field). 4. Click Report. 15

16 View a confirmation report about the effective corporate tax rate in India, which you can save and/or forward: 16

17 Search historical or future rates: You can also search for past and future tax rates for a single country or by multiple countries. To search historical or future rates by multiple countries, perform the steps as in the following example: 1. Select Search historical or future rates by multiple countries. 2. From the Choose countries drop-down menu, select the countries you want to include in your search and click OK. 17

18 3. From the Choose years drop-down menu, choose the years you want your search to cover. 4. From the Choose rate type drop-down menu, choose a rate type. 5. Click Search to see your results: 18

19 Cross Border Search: 1. Select Cross Border from the Rates menu to find withholding tax rates and the total tax costs for cross border transactions: 2. Choose a country from both the Paying menu (here: Germany) and Receiving menu (here: United Kingdom): 3. Click OK to save your country selections. 19

20 Now you can specify the conditions for your search: 1. First click Stream to view a definition of the various payment streams. 2. After reviewing the definitions, close this window: 20

21 3. For this example, change the following values for your search criteria: Payment Stream = Capital Gain Ownership Percentage = 50 Holding Period (Months) = Click Search to see the capital gain payment from Switzerland to the United Kingdom, based on your search criteria: Note: You can access a link to news for the Paying Entity country you selected. You can also select the withholding tax minimizer icon (blue arrow under Paying Withholding Tax). 5. Click Printer-friendly version to see another view of your results. 21

22 You can save and/or forward your results in this appealing format: 6. Click TREATY to discover the background, limits and features of this cross-border, capital gain legislation. Following is an example of an Income Tax Treaty (in force) between Switzerland and the United Kingdom: 22

23 Advanced Search: 1. To perform a more advanced search, select Advanced Search from the Rates menu: 2. Select a paying company and a receiving company. Then check any boxes that apply to your search under Payment Stream. Fine-tune your search by checking the appropriate radio buttons under Search Criteria and complete the fields next to each of your selections. Finally, if needed, select an entity from the Find entities drop-down menu. 3. Click Search. 23

24 4. View the results of your search: 24

25 Rate Memo: 1. To create corporate and withholding tax rate memos automatically, select Rate Memo from the Rates menu: 2. Complete the fields under Corporate Tax Rate Memo to create a document that will include calculation details: 3. Click View Memo. 25

26 4. View the corporate tax rate for the country you selected: 5. Complete the fields under Withholding Tax Rate Memo to create a document that will include supporting details. (You will need to select a paying entity and a receiving entity.) 26

27 6. Click View Memo to see the withholding tax rate on dividend payments from one country to another: 27

28 Calculator: Another valuable International Tax Expert feature is its international Calculator: 1. Select Analysis from the main toolbar at the top of the screen. 2. Select Calculator. From the screen that opens, you can select a single country or up to four countries to compare data. You can also specify a payment, profitability and stream. In this example, the ITE calculator compares attributes for Nigeria and Zimbabwe: Note: You can calculate up to four consecutive payment transactions. Just click Add a Country to add up to four countries for your calculations. 28

29 3. After you have specified the attributes you want to calculate, click Calculate to see the results: 29

30 WHT Minimizer: WHT Minimizer provides solutions for minimizing withholding taxes on cross-border payments. You will be able to find the top 20 routes providing the lowest possible withholding taxes on the payment from one country to another. WHT Minimizer considers the maximum possible combinations: of two intermediary country layers with all countries in each of the intermediary country layers. 1. Select WHT Minimizer from the Analysis menu. 2. Select a paying country and a receiving country and complete the other fields for your anticipated transaction: 3. Click Search. 30

31 Here is the printer-friendly version of the report: 31