Avocado Roundup is a quick morning review of top tax, legal, and climate news stories. It’s written by humans.
- KPMG’s four-year-old legal arm in France, KPMG Avocats, announced it added five professionals, including four lawyers, to its transfer pricing team in Paris, bringing the team to around 30 members. The new group includes lawyer Valentin Lescroart and economist Lori Whitfield, who’s also a certified public accountant, as partners. Lescroart arrives from WTS Global, where he was transfer pricing leader for the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region. He was earlier at big French law firm Fidal and spent close to 13 years at CMS Francis Lefebvre Avocats. Whitfield, who was a Canadian government senior economist, has been a partner at Grant Thornton, Deloitte, EY, and PwC. (KPMG.com)
- KPMG’s expansion in Paris comes as France moves to toughen its policies on corporate transfer pricing, after several years with no big changes, Lescroart observes on his LinkedIn profile. The draft 2024 budget bill the government plans to present to Parliament in September includes measures tightening documentation requirements and adopting the OECD’s principles on so-called hard-to-value intangibles, he said. (LinkedIn) According to another report, the French 2024 budget will extend an obligation to have transfer pricing documentation that currently applies to companies with 400 million euros ($432 million) in annual revenues to those with 150 million euros in turnover. It also hikes the penalty for noncompliance. (LeFebvre Dalloz Compétences)
- The United Nations Secretary General yesterday released its final report on international tax cooperation, making no big changes from a draft version it released weeks ago. The report calls for the world body to take a greater role in setting global tax policy, a role the rich country-led OECD has dominated for decades. (UN.org)
- The US Internal Revenue Service proposed regulations on the sale and exchange of digital assets by brokers that would, according to the Treasury Department, align digital asset reporting with reporting on other types of assets. (CoinTelegraph)
- China extended to the end of 2027 its preferential tax treatment for foreign workers. (China Briefing)
- Vietnam’s tax authority had collected over $1 billion in tax arrears this year as of the end of July. (Vietnam Plus)
- Most wealthy countries tax capital income at a lower rate than they tax income from labor, according to a new report from the Organization for Economic and Cooperation and Development. (OECD.org)
- A former IRS attorney was sentenced in Ohio to three years in prison for voter fraud. (Law360)
- King & Spalding picked up the former head of Locke Lord’s tax department, Mitch Tiras, in Houston as a partner in its corporate, finance, and investments practice. He advises on tax aspects of private equity deals, M&A and other transactions, and corporate governance. (KSLaw.com)
- Eversheds Sutherland hired Mayer Brown tax partner Michael Lebovitz as partner in San Francisco, where he specializes in international business and tax planning. He’s been partner at several other Big Law firms and KPMG and was a managing director at PwC. (Eversheds-Sutherland.com)
