Tax & Accounting

Trends | Inversions
The US Treasury Department’s recent rules against corporate inversions are intended to stop “serial inverters.”

Tax Reporting & Compliance
The OECD’s “Base Erosion and Profit Shifting” principles are being incorporated into tax laws in some nations, requiring more transparency from corporate treasury departments.

Trends | Taxation
As part of a crackdown on generous tax incentives across the European Union, in January the European Commission (EC) demanded Belgium claw back €700 million ($762 million) in tax breaks from at least 35 European firms.

Management | Risk Management
Cyberattacks, safety concerns, climate change, regulatory demands, declining oil prices, less demand from China, a crumbling and volatile stock market: There is no lack of risks in doing business, and at the start of 2016, they are ever- present for corporations small and large.

Trends | Financial Accounting
A new international accounting standard that came into effect at the beginning of 2016 is already transforming how companies around the world think about their balance sheets.

Taxation | Capital Markets
In December 2015, 10 European Union members agreed on key aspects of a harmonized financial transaction tax (FTT).

The world’s richest countries are getting tougher on corporate tax avoidance. But experts predict that, new guidelines notwithstanding, companies will still find ways around the system.

Trends | Taxation
Brazil is well known in the global business sector for its tax complexity, heavy tax burden (around 35% of GDP) and high use of technology for tax collection. Not for nothing do Brazilians call their tax authority—Receita Federal do Brasil—“the Lion.”

Executive Pay | Since the global financial crisis of 2008, corporate boards have been under pressure to tie executive pay to performance.

Management | Tax Policy
In an effort to clamp down on tax avoidance by multinationals, the European Commission has announced plans to revive a proposal to unify the corporate tax base across Europe.

Special Report | Global Payments
When it comes to enriching corporate card programs, the focus is on technologies and policies that can boost efficiency, visibility and controls.

As the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development works on ways to keep multinationals from shifting profits to low-tax jurisdictions, tax and finance executives are divided on whether its efforts will improve the global corporate tax system.

Trends | Money Market Reform
Seven years have passed since investor panic during the financial crisis set off a run on money market funds. Since that time, the Securities and Exchange has adopted reforms aimed at reducing MMFs’ credit and interest rate risks and boosting their transparency.

Management | Metrics
Corporations and analysts turn to scores of metrics—return on assets, working capital and others—to determine a company’s financial health. Another, the ratio of debt to internal funds, is one of the most widely used benchmarks. But a new study suggests that the debt-to-funds ratio isn’t all that accurate in predicting or explaining default risk.

Trends | US Dollar/Corporate Earnings
As corporate guidance goes, it was not the most upbeat news ever.

Management | Corporate Reporting
For Petróleo Brasileiro, or Petrobras, as the giant Brazilian oil company is called, the time to present audited 2014 results, including the write-downs associated with the highly publicized historical corruption scandal, is running out.

Newsmakers | United States
A new crack appeared in the corporate glass ceiling in February, when Cathy Engelbert was appointed CEO of Deloitte US, becoming the first woman to lead one of the Big Four audit and consulting firms in the United States.

Milestones | China
New legislation will lower the regulatory hurdles for foreign companies entering the Chinese market, but it is restricted to particular industries.

Milestones | European Union
Regulators had Web giants like Google and Apple in their sites when they framed a new value-added tax (VAT) regulation for businesses selling digital products into the European Union
 

Regulation | Management
In October the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project released a report outlining its progress on a series of steps it was taking to combat tactics—often legal but ethically questionable—used by many multinational companies to reduce or eliminate tax liabilities across their operations.