Latest news with #corporations
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Automotive
- Bloomberg
EU to Force Car-Rental Firms to Buy EVs Only From 2030: Bild
The European Commission is working on a plan to prohibit car-rental firms and large corporations from buying non-electric vehicles for their fleets from 2030, according to German newspaper Bild. Under the deliberations, companies like Sixt SE and Europcar Mobility Group SA would only be allowed to purchase electric vehicles from that date, the publication said, citing European Union sources it didn't identify.
Forbes
6 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Seeking Corporate Tax Insights? Check Out The Expanded Audit Report
Audit business concept. As the onset of the new tax accounting reporting standard approaches, external stakeholders are anticipating getting new insights into corporations' tax planning activities. However, what all external stakeholders may not be aware of is that there is another new rich source of information that may provide fruitful insights. In this article, I discuss recent academic research that sheds light on the informativeness and usefulness of the expanded audit report when tax matters are being discussed. The New Expanded Audit Report In 2019, the PCAOB introduced requirements that external auditors must provide an expanded audit report. In this report, the auditor must report critical audit matters, the auditor's tenure, and other relevant information, according to the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance. The goal of these new requirements was to move beyond the traditional pass/fail and boilerplate style of audit report and transition into a scenario where auditors can provide more value by shedding additional light on their clients. Notably, the critical audit matters (or key audit matters, as referred to in the international community) that auditors disclose offer additional insights into the key risks that their clients face. For example, like Apple's 2019 Annual Report, their auditor, Ernst & Young, disclosed an entire paragraph about the uncertainty Apple is facing over a 12.9 billion euro multinational tax dispute. However, what many US investors and external stakeholders may not realize is that many members of the international business community have already been providing an expanded audit report. Starting in 2016, those countries under the guidance and regulation of the IAASB began providing very similar expanded audit reports. As data has been available longer for non-US companies, researchers have turned to these observations outside of the US to help shed light on the impacts of the expanded audit report. A Look At Tax Key Audit Matters Recent research in the Review of Accounting Studies explores the impacts of the expanded audit report. In a study titled 'The consequences of expanded audit reporting: implications of tax key audit matters for tax attribute valuation and auditor-provided tax services,' researchers examined key audit matters of a sample of 3,063 firm-year observations from 601 unique firms from the London Stock Exchange premium segment over the 2013 to 2019 time period. This article is co-authored by Dan Lynch of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Aaron Mandell of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and Linette Rousseau of the University of Houston. Their study aims to investigate whether key audit matters affect investor or auditor outcomes. In discussing the key motivation for examining their research question, Lynch states, 'Regulators introduced expanded audit reporting to increase the usefulness of the audit report to investors by requiring the auditor to discuss the most challenging issues. However, Prior research generally finds that key audit matters do not influence investor perceptions of audited companies.' Lynch continues to state, 'We believed that examining tax key audit matters, a specific sub-topic related to material financial statement amounts that is important to regulators and investors and where auditors are permitted to provide certain non-audit services might yield more nuanced insights. Specifically, if investors perceive tax key audit matters negatively, then we believe managers would have an incentive to avoid having the auditor disclose these key audit matters and one way to do so would be by purchasing more tax services from their auditor.' The study finds, in fact, that tax key audit matters influence investor and audit outcomes. Mandell specifically highlights, 'We find that tax key audit matters attenuate the positive valuation investors place on the tax avoidance and deferred tax assets of firms. In most cases, investors no longer place a positive valuation on these tax attributes.' Thus, these findings have significant implications for the capital markets. Perhaps, even more striking were the second set of analyses related to auditor-provided tax services. 'The biggest surprise was probably that firms increase their purchases of tax services from auditors to avoid tax key audit matters, which potentially represents a threat to auditor independence,' states Rousseau. She continues, 'We find that firms that receive a tax key audit matter reduce tax services purchased from their auditor by about 32% or $63,000. We find that firms that stop receiving tax key audit matters increase the purchase of tax services from their auditor in the year following this resolution by 104% or about $208,000.' Consequently, there is evidence that clients recognize the value of not having a tax key audit matter, and this notion is seen as a transactional opportunity to work with their external auditor. Lynch concludes, 'It would be interesting to see if these results generalize to the U.S. expanded audit report setting and to other common critical/key audit matters topics.' Thus, even though this research examined an international setting, it is possible that the results may also apply to the US setting. Importantly, as US firms prepare to provide more tax insights through their new tax disclosure requirements under Accounting Standards Update 2023-09, it is essential to remember that numerous other sources may provide fruitful and valuable information, such as the expanded auditor report.
Khaleej Times
6 days ago
- Business
- Khaleej Times
UAE announces deduction of tax depreciation on fair-valued investment property for firms
Firms in the UAE can now deduct tax depreciation on fair valued investment property, the Ministry of Finance announced on July 17. Under the new decision, taxpayers (who elect for the realisation basis) can elect to deduct depreciation from their taxable income (hereafter known as 'tax depreciation') for investment properties that are held on a fair value basis. The decision comes under the Depreciation Adjustments for Investment Properties held at Fair Value for the Purposes of Federal Decree-Law No. (47) of 2022 on the Taxation of Corporations and Businesses. The tax depreciation deduction available will be the lower of the tax written down value of the investment property or four per cent of the original cost of the investment property, for each 12-month tax period or otherwise prorated for part of the tax period. During this period, the relevant investment property will be held, and will be available to taxpayers who hold investment properties prior to and/or after the introduction of corporate tax. The decision provides clarity as to the value upon which tax depreciation can be claimed depending on whether the investment property is transferred between related parties or third parties or has been constructed/developed by the taxpayer. It also provides parity between taxpayers who hold investment properties on a historical cost basis, who can already benefit from a deduction for accounting depreciation, with those who hold investment properties on a fair value basis. To avail this benefit, this decision therefore requires taxpayers to make this irrevocable election in their first tax period beginning on or after January 1, 2025, in which they hold an investment property and such election will apply to all investment properties going forward. Given the realisation basis must have been elected by taxpayers wanting to benefit from the tax depreciation election, and that the realisation basis election is generally made in the first tax period, the decision also allows for an exceptional window for taxpayers to opt in to elect for the realisation basis to avail the tax depreciation deduction. Finally, the decision provides guidance on when the claw-back of tax depreciation may occur in instances outside of a disposal of an investment property such that taxpayers are aware of their tax compliance obligations and are able to accurately assess their returns on investment property.
Forbes
6 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
A New Carbon Credit Standard Brings New Hope To The Market
There has been controversy surrounding the forest carbon credit market. Some project developers have been seen as cheating the system by overreporting the amount of carbon sequestered, which allowed them to earn greater revenue from carbon credit sales. We take for granted that nations have to destroy their forests to develop, but carbon credits offer another way. Countries need money to build energy infrastructure, roads and bridges, fund hospitals and universities, and with programs funded by carbon credits, they can develop without destroying their countries. Carbon Credits offer alternative revenues to the government and local communities. This allows a country to develop without destroying its natural resources. Deforestation in Cambodia. Densely canopied forest is destroyed in the pursuit of economic ... More development. This is how carbon credits work: they are coupons that represent some amount of carbon that has been stored in a patch of forest. Corporations can buy these coupons to help them achieve their net-zero commitments. Governments of developing nations can sell carbon credits and earn revenues to develop sustainably. The forest carbon credit market has been heavily criticized, saying that corporations who buy carbon credits are only greenwashing their image. Some criticism has been fair. We acknowledge that there have been enough projects with flawed baselines to justify scrutiny from the press. Some project developers have applied the methodologies in a sloppy way, prompting heavy scrutiny. There have been enough examples of poor integrity in carbon accounting to have delegitimized the wider system in the eyes of many. This led to cynics believing that everyone was overstating how much carbon they actually sequestered. This is unfortunate because pragmatically, carbon credits are our best hope of preserving our remaining forests. The Amazon rainforest being cleared for soybean planting. Mato Grosso state in western Brazil, Oct. ... More 4, 2015 Up until now, there have only been a few accrediting firms in the carbon market. The limited selection of accrediting bureaus has made it such that when a bureau gets criticized, all the associated projects are tainted in the eyes of the carbon credit purchasers. Until now, Verra has maintained a de facto monopoly on the market, but a new firm has been announced and it will be accrediting projects by 2026. As a project developer, I'm very excited. We will have a new standard, Equitable Carbon Standard (ECS) and a new accrediting body, Equitable Earth, which lessens our dependence on Verra and gives more hope to carbon credit buyers. Equitable Earth has stricter requirements for counting carbon, and has a methodology that provides greater empowerment to Indigenous and local people. The new system aims to resolve the lack of trust that the corporate buyers have for project developers. There have been concerns that the amount of carbon being reported did not match the reality on the ground. Separately, there have been complaints that some projects have harmed local people by taking their land away. In the new standard, indigenous people will play a bigger role in project management and benefit sharing. Their elevated position in decision making will hopefully allay some of these anxieties about their wellbeing. Carbon credits are the best, pragmatic way to preserve the forests. Land conversion, clearing forests so that they can be replaced by agriculture, industrial development, or urban expansion, is the biggest driver of deforestation. Deforestation across the Tropical Belt as of 2022. Green shows remaining forests. Carbon Credits ... More offer developing nations a meaningful alternative to the deforest to develop trajectory. Compiled with data from various sources. Global climate commitments include ending deforestation by 2030 and reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. This won't be done by reducing emissions alone. Even with the emerging technologies and strategies that will lower the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere, we still need to absorb and sequester the balance to maintain net-zero emissions. Our forests, and the carbon credits that protect them, offer the most effective way to accomplish this imperative.
Irish Times
6 days ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
Letters to the Editor, July 17th: On school summer holidays, regulating the property market and a man of letters
Sir, – I read with interest the recent discussion on the length of school summer holidays and the suggestion that they should be shortened to better accommodate working parents. While the challenges faced by families during the summer months are very real, I believe we are asking the wrong question. Yes, most families now rely on two incomes to stay afloat. Yes, summer camps are expensive, inconsistent, and often logistically unworkable. But does that mean we should surrender our children's precious time off to the ever-increasing demands of the adult working world and the bottomless greed of corporations, who want to extract ever more from their employees? READ MORE Must we prepare young kids now for the drudgery of a lifetime of 20-25 days of precious annual leave by denying them the joy of long summer breaks while they are young? Rather than cutting short the only real break children get in the year, maybe we should be asking why our workplaces and public policies haven't sufficiently evolved to support modern family life. If the corporate world depends on the working parents who drive their enormous profits, then it's time it stepped up – through expanded summer leave programmes, more flexible hours, or even onsite childcare or camps. And if the State does indeed recognise the importance of education and also downtime (and downtime can be educational), it should also recognise the value of accessible, enriching and affordable summer supports and programs – perhaps delivered through schools and public institutions. The working parents contribute enough taxes. The current system leaves parents dreading and then merely enduring the summer holidays, instead of anticipating carefree and unstructured times which present opportunities for family interaction, new types of learning, not to mention a decent blast of fresh air before the onset of winter. The solution is not to take more from our children but to demand more from the systems that loudly claim to support families, and whose pockets are certainly deep enough to do a little more. Let children enjoy their long summers. They'll be part of the workforce soon enough – and for long enough. – Yours, etc, GERARD REYNOLDS, Ballyboden, Dublin 16. Sir, – Breda O' Brien makes some interesting observations regarding school principal workload: ' Only bottle recycling keeps schools open, ' (July 12th). Leading teaching and learning – the job they applied for and are qualified for – is now jostling for position in an overcrowded space. Principals are bowled off their feet by the tsunami of being financial controller, accountant, HR manager, IT consultant, building project manager, security consultant – and more besides. This is also reflected in the work day of the current school secretary. In providing vital support to all of the above, the school secretary role is one of PA, administrator, data controller, payroll, accounts. The quaint role of a bit of filing, photocopying and answering the phone is dim and distant. We set up every new teacher and SNA on to the Department of Education payroll system. We submit thousands of pay claims every week for substitute teachers and SNAs. We oversee and arrange any amount of appointments by visiting professionals to the school. We order, organise and distribute the school book scheme. We make complex data returns to various Department of Education sectors. We pay bus escorts and cleaners and make the associated Revenue returns. We liaise with the Department of Health regarding child vaccinations and health screenings. We sign passport applications for the Department of Foreign Affairs. We deal with the Department of Social Protection regarding Social Welfare claims and more recently the behemoth that is the school meals programme. In other words, we do public service work, all day long. We are public servants in all but name. Yet, we are denied access to the public service pension scheme, uniquely within the school setting. Is it any wonder that school secretaries, along with caretaker colleagues, have voted 98 per cent in favour of strike action? We are not asking for anything that our teacher and SNA colleagues don't already rightly have. We are not asking for anything that other school secretaries doing identical jobs don't already have (Education and Training Board school secretaries have public servant status.) We love our jobs but will not be returning to work in September. We deserve recognition for our public service work, carried out for decades in this country, providing for the delivery of education to the children of this State. – Yours, etc, GINA BYRNE, Birdhill, Co Tipperary. Regulating the property market Sir – Our esteemed Government is reducing the regulations of new apartments and adding more regulations to the rental market. These actions have all been done before and the results speak for themselves. It is well known that insanity is repeating the same actions over and over and expecting different results. As an estate agent I used to assume politicians just don't understand the property market and that is why they are unable to take the necessary corrective measures to fix it. Sadly, I have now come to the realisation that they do indeed understand it. They know in a market such as ours, where demand exceeds supply, continuing and indeed accelerating Government foreign direct investment (FDI) policy is literally 'pouring petrol' on the overheating property fire. They are, therefore aware there is zero chance of them being able to solve the current housing crisis. Hence, insane property market interference makes sense – because their only option is to pretend they are doing 'the right thing'. If you can fool people into believing that you can build apartments quicker than you can land aeroplanes, the only fly in the ointment I can see is the small article in the Constitution, the one about protecting the 'family'. I might be simple, but even I can see an FDI policy that creates massive corporate immigration, causing a housing crisis, which in turn creates lower paid forced emigration – displaces both the immigrants and emigrants from their immediate families. Perhaps only the Constitution can save us from all this insanity. – Yours, etc, NICK CRAWFORD, Dalkey, Co Dublin. Sir, – I share the overall concern expressed by John McCartney about the Help to Buy scheme, that demand-side intervention in the housing market appears to increase house prices without necessarily increasing supply of housing (' Help to Buy is seen as free money but it just results in higher house prices and more tax ,' July 9th). I don't share his dismissal of increased supply as the most important part of improving affordability. Dr McCartney offers three more significant elements of house price inflation than supply: planning, professional services fees (exacerbated by lack of competition), and financial sector incentives. I'm not a property market economist. But I did recently buy a house (not using the Help to Buy scheme). Professional fees for both sides (solicitors, estate agent, surveyor, etc) accounted for less than 5 per cent of the purchase price. I had a wide range of choice among which to shop around for these professional services; more competition may well reduce these costs, but it's hard to see any realistic reduction having much impact on the overall purchase price. Moreover, as someone who educates the next generation of solicitors, it's hard to see what type of regulation could encourage more law graduates to work as conveyancing solicitors in private practice, rather than for corporate firms – especially if we expect them to make less money from conveyancing. It is already difficult for smaller firms to attract talented law graduates, without expecting them to cut their fees for the services they provide. Professional fees paid by developers to corporate firms are a different matter – perhaps these need to fall to reduce the costs of new housing developments. But, Dr McCartney doesn't think we need very many new developments, and it's hard to see how corporate firms' pricing structures affect the second-hand conveyancing market. 'Incentives for the financial sector' seems to imply that the taxpayer money currently given to private home purchasers to hand over to developers and banks, should instead be given to banks so they will lend more money to developers. Perhaps Dr McCartney can explain what he means in more detail. In any event, it's hard to see the point of encouraging banks to lend more to developers, unless that allows developers to build more housing, which Dr McCartney doesn't believe is necessary. Planning reforms are therefore the strongest example given by Dr McCartney. I certainly think it should be easier to build housing at all segments of the market, in all locations around the country, than our planning laws currently allow. Indeed, there is a strong case that 'legalise housing' should be the political clarion call of my generation. But again, it doesn't make sense to change laws that currently limit the amount of housing that can be built, unless at least part of the goal is to build more housing. –Yours, etc, DR ALAN EUSTACE , Assistant Professor of Private Law, School of Law, Trinity College, Dublin 2. Still talking rubbish Sir, – Laura O'Mara is asking :Why can we not clean up when leaving a beach during this beautiful weather (Letters, July 15th)? In the mid-1970s I sent a similar letter to this newspaper with the exact same question, after having spent most of a day on a beach. And likewise suggested how easy it was to avoid the problem. – Yours, etc, KAREN HIGGINS, Mallow, Co Cork. Man on a mission Sir, – Thank you for Joe Humphreys's informative and interesting article on Irish missionaries (' What did you do if you were young, Irish and idealistic 60 years ago? Join the missions ,' July 14th). He makes reference to the benign influence of a pioneering Loreto nun on the Kenyan environmentalist, Wangari Maathai; how Bono became an activist as a result of the work of two Spiritan priests and how children's rights were advanced in East Africa by the fearless campaigning of a Mercy sister. Reflecting on the work of Sr Colombiere Kelly; Fr Jack and Fr Aengus Finucane and Sr Mary Killeen and their promotion of Kingdom values, I am reminded of something the late Pope Paul VI stated in his Encyclical Evangelii Nuntiandi: 'The modern world listens more readily to witnesses than it does to preachers.' – Yours, etc, FR LAURENCE CULLEN, Geevagh, Co Sligo. Medical bodies and Gaza Sir, – The recent letter from Chris Fitzpatrick concerning attacks on medical staff and infrastructure in Gaza eloquently sets the context for our letter. We are a group of medical graduates, University of Galway, 1984, who have come together to do what we can to support Gaza, with a focus on the medical aspects. A month ago we wrote to some of the leading medical organisations in this country. We asked that they would not only issue statements of condemnation of attacks on healthcare workers by the Israel Defense Forces, but that they would also contact equivalent organisations in Israel requesting statements of their position in this regard. We also asked them to consider severing any academic or formal ties which they have with such organisations. We pointed out that condemnation on its own has achieved nothing. The Israeli Medical Organisation (IMA) website carries a statement by the World Medical Organisation on a recent Iranian attack on the Soroka medical facility in southern Israel. With absolutely no sense of irony, it quotes the WMA as saying '… any strike on a hospital violates international law'. This appears to be the only condemnation of such violence cited by the IMA – they are silent on the deliberate targeting of Gazan healthcare facilities and staff by their own military. We received responses from The Irish Hospital Consultants Association and The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland but not from The Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland or the Irish Medical Organisation. We acknowledge first of all that these organisations have made strong condemnatory statements on the healthcare and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and that the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland engages in practical assistance; also that as we are not collectively members or graduates of the various bodies there was no obligation on any of them to provide a response to us. We write today however to express our dismay that none of the organisations has taken up our suggestion of confronting the IMA or other Israeli medical institutions about their silence. We acknowledge that such action is not necessarily simple and that from their perspective there may be financial and administrative factors to consider. However, this is overwhelmingly an ethical/moral issue and we believe it is incumbent on our leading medical and higher educational organisations to show leadership. Therefore, we repeat our call to them to take practical steps to make it clear to their Israeli equivalents that silence in the face of genocide and war crimes has consequences. Trinity College Dublin is the only Irish academic organisation to have taken such steps and we urge our colleagues in leadership roles in Irish medicine to follow their example. – Yours, etc, DR ANN MARIE CONNOLLY, DR MARGARET CONNOLLY, DR ALEXANDRA DUNCAN, DR SUSAN FINNERTY, DR SIOBHAN GRAHAM, (And five others), Stillorgan, Dublin. Sir, – A week ago , your newspaper was good enough to publish my letter which posed the question:'Could anyone please furnish an instance where anyone has criticised Israel without being accused of being anti-Semitic?' I thank the former minister for justice, Alan Shatter, for yesterday in front of the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee, answering the question. (' Sharp exchanges as Shatter compares trade ban Bill to 1930s Germany ,'July 16th). – Yours, etc, JOHN CRONIN, Terenure, Dublin 6. Man of letters Sir, – A very regular letter writer to your august columns was Pádraig McCarthy whom I had the privilege to know. One day I was complimenting him on how many letters he had published and he took me by the arm to say ' you should see how many don't get published'. Pádraig was a very regular correspondent, usually on moral issues. What most of your readers will not know was that he was a retired Catholic priest and that he has recently passed away. His letters were always gentle and succinct. Just as he was himself. A good friend, may he rest in peace. – Yours, etc, JOHN RYAN, Sandyford, Dublin 18.
