Hong Kong Poised To Solidify Financial Hub Status
Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang has announced new plans designed to ensure that Hong Kong's position as a leading global finance hub is consolidated and strengthened. In a policy address last week, Tsang said that the financial sector is a major pillar of the Hong Kong economy, and observed that China's rapid development and the opening up of its financial sector have presented unprecedented opportunities for Hong Kong's financial-services sector.
UK Treasury Consults On New Offshore Funds Regime
As part of last week's pre-budget report the UK Treasury has issued a Discussion Paper on reform of the Offshore Funds Regime (OSFR). The government is proposing that taxation of offshore funds should distinguish between income and capital gains as long as a fund reports its results in a prescribed format to UK investors and the tax authority. Currently, the gains of an offshore fund are taxed as income unless it has 'distributor' status, which requires that it cannot hold more than 5% of its investment in non-distributing funds, and is determined retrospectively, making such funds unattractive to investors.
ACCA Gives Rundown On Pre-Budget Report
Richard Aitken-Davies, Deputy President of ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) has spelled out four key principles for a better-run UK tax system, based on the recent Pre-Budget Report. These principles were: stability, certainty, simplicity and fairness, allied to a call for the establishment of a Tax Policy Committee (to be run along similar lines to the Monetary Policy Committee), and a single Budget at the commencement of each Parliament to achieve more stable and less burdensome tax legislation.
China Requires Banks to Set Aside Bigger Reserves
China ordered banks to set aside more money as reserves for the eighth time this year to cool speculation in stocks and real estate and curb the fastest inflation in 10 years.
Banks line up $75bn mortgage debt fund
Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan are on Monday expected to announce plans for a fund to buy mortgage-linked securities in an attempt to allay fears of a downward price-spiral that would hit the balance sheets of big banks.
Cyprus Raises Income Tax Threshold
The Cyprus House of Representatives has approved new measures that would increase the threshold at which income tax becomes payable in Cyprus.The amendment, part of the proposed social cohesion measures, would mean that no income tax is payable on the first CYP10,750 (EUR18,400) of income for 2007. This threshold will increase to CYP11,350 for 2008.
Rice pledges support to Russian activists
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Russian human rights activists on Saturday she wanted to help them build institutions to protect people from the 'arbitrary power of the state'.
Citigroup Top Trader Maheras Exits Amid Losses, Pandit Promoted
Citigroup Inc., the biggest U.S. bank, said its trading chief will leave after almost $6 billion of losses and bad-debt costs, and named former Morgan Stanley executive Vikram Pandit to oversee trading, investment banking and alternative investments.
