As all court cases do, the Supreme Court's landmark decision in West Virginia v. EPA last month addressed a specific question: whether the Environmental Protection Agency had the statutory authority to shut down power plants and reshape significant parts of the energy sector in its effort to reduce emissions. The answer was a plain and simple no. Equally clear was the court's argument, which has implications for administrative actions well beyond this case ...
Although a trust is a valuable financial, tax and estate planning tool, does it allow one to ?shelter? some assets from the public order rules which apply in the context of family law?What is a trust?A trust is a legal disposition which allows a person to transfer the ownership of one or more of his or her assets to a trust for the trust to administer such assets for the benefit of one or more beneficiaries ...
On June 16, 2020 the German government released its Corona-Warn-App. There are some key points employers should be aware of concerning the app: NO OBLIGATION FOR EMPLOYEES TO USE THE APP ON THEIR PERSONAL SMARTPHONES An employer may be thinking about instructing its employees to install and use the Corona-Warn-App on their own devices to reduce the infection risk among its employees. That is not permitted ...
After decades of debate, US healthcare reform became a reality in 2010 when President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) in March. Yet public opinion remains sharply divided on the merits of this sweeping legislation, both in terms of its ability to address the problems of access to, and the rising cost of, healthcare services and in terms of the financial burden on the federal and state governments of implementing ACA ...
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced Friday on Twitter that the U.S. will extend the tax filing deadline of April 15, 2020 for 2019 individual and business tax returns until July 15, 2020. Earlier this week, the Internal Revenue Service announced that the payment deadline for any 2019 individual income tax due, including 2020 first quarter estimated payments due April 15, 2020, was deferred until July 15, 2020 ...
These days many US businesses are looking north to Canada for new markets. This paper discusses when a US business needs to worry about the Canadian tax system. The short answer comes from some of the oldest provisions in the Income Tax Act. US businesses need to worry about Canadian tax when they have a physical presence in Canada. To read this paper, click here. For more information please contact Len Glass at [email protected] or 604.631.9140 ...
With the U.S. economy not as robust as it once was, it seems that Americans are currently more interested in selling their Canadian assets, particularly recreational property, than buying Canadian assets. It is therefore useful to consider the issues that arise when a U.S. person sells Canadian real estate. The following points are relevant: The U.S ...
Order in Council no. 292/2011, published on 8 November, updated the list of countries, territories and regions with clearly more favourable privileged tax regimes ( known as ‘tax havens’) appearing in the earlier Order in Council no. 150/2004 of 13 February. It also excluded from the list two countries that are members of the European Union (EU): Cyprus and Luxembourg ...
On March 20, 2020, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) jointly issued guidance regarding the tax credits available to certain small employers who are required to provide new types of paid leave to employees under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (Act), enacted on March 18, 2020 ...
Even though OSHA has advised that no specific standard covers the novel coronavirus, human resource and safety personnel must be mindful of the generally-applicable standards that might apply. OSHA has issued several guidelines that, while not the rule of law, do offer guidance on addressing COVID-19 issues, including recordkeeping and 300 log reporting obligations. On April 10, OSHA issued guidance that appeared to limit what cases would be required to be reported on OSHA 300 logs ...
Texas has now joined the growing ranks of states that have passed laws aimed at increasing tax collection from online retail transactions. Although Governor Rick Perry vetoed an earlier bill (H.B. 2403) providing that out-of-state retailers that have relationships with certain Texas “affiliated” entities will be deemed to be doing business in Texas for purposes of the sales and use tax, language virtually identical to that found in H.B. 2403 is included in S.B ...
As discussed in our previous Alert, the French government has imposed Sunshine-like obligations on the pharmaceutical industry. Article 2 of Law No 2011-2012 of 29 December 2011 on the Strengthening of Health Protection for Medicinal and Health Products ("loi relative au renforcement de la sécurité sanitaire du médicament et des produits de santé" or "Loi Bertrand") inserted Articles L. 1453-1 in the French Code of Public Health ("Code de la santé publique" or "CSP"). Article L ...
On August 8, 2023 the President of the Russian Federation signed and published new Decree 'On suspension by the Russian Federation of certain provisions of the Double Tax Treaties' No. 585 (the “Decree No. 585”) ...
We would like to provide you with an update on some changes in the legal regulation of medicines in Russia made due to dynamic spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) ...
February 17, 2023 By: Alexander Davis and Manuel Fishman Update This article is partly a republication of a Client Alert that was issued on December 6, 2022 titled “San Francisco’s Commercial Vacancy Tax.” Readers who have already read the original article can simply read ahead to the sections labeled “Update.” Commercial Vacancy Tax In March 2020, the voters of San Francisco approved Proposition D, also known as the Commercial Vacancy Tax ...
Earlier in the year, we reported on the government’s announcement of increases to visa and nationality fees. These increases to application fees came into force on 4 October 2023, other than the substantial increase to the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) which was expected to come ‘later in the autumn’ ...
California Health and Safety Code section 1418.8 outlines the requirements a skilled nursing facility (SNF) must follow when a physician prescribes a medical intervention that requires informed consent for an "unfriended" resident, meaning an individual who lacks capacity and does not have a person with legal authority to make health care decisions on their behalf. Section 1418 ...
After over two years of statewide eviction moratoria in the forms of executive orders, Judicial Council rules, and legislation, California's eviction moratorium was scheduled to come to an end on March 31, 2022. However, on March 31, 2022, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, serving as acting governor while Governor Gavin Newsom was out of state, signed Assembly Bill 2179 into law, which took effect immediately ...
This fall, an outbreak of lung illnesses allegedly related to vaping ignited public hysteria and legislative reactions in many states. The vaping and cannabis industries are already paying, and will continue to pay, high reputational and policy costs associated with these events, and the industries should also be aware that the widespread nature of reported injuries could lead to a substantial amount of costly mass tort litigation ...
In terms of section 222(1) of the South African Tax Administration Act, 2011 (the “TAA”), “[i]n the event of an ‘understatement’ by a taxpayer, the taxpayer must pay, in addition to the ‘tax’ payable for the relevant tax period, the understatement penalty determined under subsection (2) unless the ‘understatement’ results from a bona fide inadvertent error” (our emphasis) ...
This eighth edition of Unprecedented, our weekly update on COVID-19-related litigation, follows what we hope was a restful and meaningful Memorial Day weekend. For the third week in a row, shutdown challenges, workers' compensation claims, and wrongful death lawsuits have dominated the news cycle. But, we are also seeing a continuation in refund claims and an uptick in fraud claims involving everything from alleged misuse of sick days to corporate press releases ...
South Africa is in lockdown in the face of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, and although we aren’t able to meet face-to-face over this period, we know how important it is to stay in touch, and we will continue to keep you up-to-date on recent tax developments. In this regard, it feels like a lifetime ago that the South African Minister of Finance delivered his 2020 Budget Speech on 26 February 2020 ...
The White House announced on Monday, Sept. 20, 2021, that in early November of this year, it intends to end the COVID-19 travel bans imposed in 2020 and replace them with vaccination and COVID-19 testing requirements for almost all travelers ...
On June 30, 2020, the Senate passed an extension of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to keep the program operating until August 8, 2020. On July 1, 2020, the House also approved the extension for the program which was set to end on June 30. The President is expected to sign the extension shortly ...
