-
04 Mar, 2016
As emphasised by the International Labour Organizations (ILO), seafarers are frequently exposed to difficult working conditions and particular occupational risks. In fact, since working far from home, they may be vulnerable...
Read Full Article »
-
04 Jan, 2016
Creating an offshore company and optimize your revenue is still possible. However, you must choose the jurisdiction which will implement the structure. Indeed, the best country is not always which you think would be...
Read Full Article »
-
03 Aug, 2015
The small landlocked country of Uganda is usually not the talking point of European investors. Or at least that was the case until recently when European investors are increasingly trying to diversify their portfolio, and suddenly...
Read Full Article »
-
17 Jul, 2014
Value Added Tax (VAT) is that elusive little percentage that creeps up and settles at the bottom of invoices or requests for payment, many times over and above the final price that has been agreed.
Read Full Article »
-
14 Apr, 2014
In a masterpiece of diplomacy, China's premier said last week that it was "open-minded" about the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), which when you deconstruct it probably means that he is happy for Japan to wreck the chances of a successful TPP by refusing to negotiate on its rice tariffs (778 percent, as I recall).
Read Full Article »
-
31 Mar, 2014
One swallow doesn't make a summer, but two are a bit more promising, and that's what we are seeing in the EU/China tradasphere, with harmony breaking out on the oenophile and polysilicon fronts. In a parallel WTO case, over China's rare earth export policies, the country is left looking rather battered after an investigation, and said mildly only that it "regretted" the decision against it. The US, on the other hand, continues to present a hard front towards China over its trading policies for solar energy exports.
Read Full Article »
-
20 Mar, 2014
The outgoing European Parliament is remaining true to its warped principles, and is going out on a high, waving through a suicidal prescription for enhancement of the AMLD. Ah, you didn't know? That stands for the Anti-Money Laundering Directive, and to give you an idea of how it works, last week a friend of mine in Italy received a letter from a local bank (mischievously backdated by two months) demanding immediate compliance with the Directive, on pain of account closure.
Read Full Article »
-
12 Mar, 2014
Common sense you surely needn't look for in the European inheritance tax labyrinth, demonstrated this week by the latest twist in the French/Swiss farrago. I'm not even going to try to opine on the combatants' positions. It's obvious to everyone (me, that is) that inheritance tax ought to be abolished. It's immoral to tax money that has already been taxed; and it's doubly immoral to get in the way of inter-generational transfers. The relationship between parents and children is fraught enough already without government stepping between them.
Read Full Article »
-
24 Feb, 2014
Italy in the spotlight again this week, with (unelected) Matteo Renzi in full flood of (unelected) government-forming. It's difficult to see how he can change the Porcellum (pig-sty) for the better with the dogs' dinner of a parliament that he has inherited from his unsuccessful predecessors, Mario Monti and Enrico Letta, which is most likely to tear itself apart if any real reforms seem imminent. But let's wish him luck.
Read Full Article »
-
20 Feb, 2014
"The farmers and the cowboys should be friends," they sang in Oklahoma, even though they weren't, and they often ended up killing each other. I guess the farmers won, in the end, and nowadays most of them have turned into companies, while the remaining cowboys are Federal marshals who make sure that the farmers hang onto their property. Nowadays we could sing: "The bosses and the governors should be friends," although it doesn't have quite the same resonance, and they face each other down across a court-room floor rather than a corral, and with lawyers instead of guns, but you get the picture.
Read Full Article »
