United States and Spain sign Protocol to Bilateral Income Tax Treaty

The US Department of Treasury announced that the US and Spain signed a Protocol to their bilateral income tax treaty (the Treaty).  The Protocol includes twenty-six pages of addenda and revisions to the Treaty.  The Department of Treasury highlighted some of the Protocol’s changes to the Treaty: 1)       the Protocol provides for “exclusive residence-country” taxation…

Details

Beware: Foreign Shipping Companies Should Use Caution When Applying Treaty Exemptions

Introduction Under Guo Shui Fa (1996)(87), Guo Shui Han (2008)(952) and the revised Business Tax Law, China imposes a 4.25% outbound shiptax—consisting of 1.25% enterprise tax and 3% business tax—on foreign companies’ gross income from transporting goods and passengers out of China. Chinese ship agents are the withholding agents responsible for remitting the shiptax to…

Details

State-level Policies and The Growth of Solar Power: Interconnection and Net Metering

Last week we discussed mandatory renewable energy requirements like Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), the first of three key policies at the state-level that support the growth of solar energy in the U.S. This week, we will address the second two methods of promoting solar power use, Interconnection and Net-Metering. Unlike conventional power sources, solar power…

Details

State-level Policies and The Growth of Solar Power

Rising fossil-fuel prices and environmental concerns have led to a growing demand for renewable energy sources such as solar power.  Compared to conventional energy and other renewable energy sources, solar power has the advantage of being generated locally, which both increases efficiency and greatly reduces the costs and environmental impacts of transmission .  As a…

Details