Owner managers must carefully plan their company sales to obtain maximum benefit from the 10% CGT entrepreneurs’ relief rate, says Peter Rayney

Plans to create one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies have fallen foul of the US government’s tough new stance on corporate tax inversions, after US pharma giant AbbVie abandoned its proposed $54bn (£34bn) takeover of UK drugs manufacturer Shire on the grounds the deal will no longer deliver the anticipated tax benefits

Two Essex businessmen who evaded £2.5m in corporation tax and VAT in a fraud linked to the supply of labour to the railway industry have been jailed for 10 years after a three-week trial at Southwark Crown Court following Operation Quiver led by HMRC

The European Commission has opened an in-depth investigation to examine whether or not the tax authorities in Luxembourg struck a special tax deal with Amazon, which it says may have given the online retailer preferential treatment and breached the EU’s rules on state aid

After seven years of investigation, the prosecution dropped the charges against the Montpelier duo just as the trial started. HMRC now faces embarrassment following the prosecution collapse, says John Cassidy, tax investigations partner at Crowe Clark Whitehill

The European Commission has issued the second report into tax practices which they claim contravene the EU state aid rules, this time focusing on Fiat Finance and Trade, a division of the group Fiat, based for tax purposes in Luxembourg.

In this month's roundup of tax cases and technical tax news, Sharon Khin assesses the rulings in the Lloyds shipping case on capital allowances and payments to directors in 'error' are not dividends says First Tier Tribunal in Key Recruitment

Weakness in tax receipts combined with continued political focus on deficit reduction implies more austerity ahead, warns Martin Beck, senior economist at Oxford Economics