George Economides, partner in the firm, was a speaker at the ITPA conference held once more in Villa D’este at Lake Como in Italy on the 20th of October 2021. During his speech, George discussed the issue of Economic Substance regulations being introduced and imposed to all relevant jurisdictions by following OECD and BEPS standards. Such standards have been implemented in order to prevent profit shifting from high tax to low or no tax jurisdictions, hence being obliged to pass legislation attending to those standards. Moreover, George discussed the challenges as to how this could indeed be efficiently implemented and how vague the concept of Economic Substance really still is as there is no precedence of how cases are being examined and how strict authorities are.

The conference, a two-day event, was the ITPA’s first conference to be organised after the covid-19 pandemic lockdown and restrictions, marking the association’s re-launching of physical events. The conference has been well-received by the members of the associations and well-attended.

The International Tax Planning Association (ITPA) was founded in 1975 and is a multi-disciplined association of bankers, trust officers, finance directors, accountants, lawyers and others with a practical interest in the tax aspects of cross-frontier transactions.

For further information and assistance on whether you or your business is affected by the Economic Substance rules, feel free to get in touch with George Economides.