The personal income tax legislation allows credits to be applied against the tax payable by individuals who make investments either directly or through a legal entity (e.g. through the formation of companies, capital increases, etc.).
Keeping our legal sight on the obstacles or difficulties for cross-border mergers which we started looking at in the previous article in this series, we cannot overlook that the laws of every state retain their own peculiar characteristics, a few of which are deep rooted although little known beyond their borders, which may place boulders in the path that are hard or impossible to move round.
There has been much talk about cross-border bank mergers in Europe, but so far none have happened or appear to be imminent. A few years ago Garrigues recommended that banks watch out for them in the future. Now the European supervisors are calling for them to be carried out and even trying to make them easier. But for the time being the bank concentration process is still taking place within each member state. This is currently being seen in Italy, with the acquisition of UBI Banca by Intesa Sanpaolo, and in Spain, with the merger of Caixabank and Bankia. It is not happening across borders. In this series of three articles we will try to identify and reflect on a number of legal factors that may partly explain this situation.
The complexity of international operations, as well as the existence of multiple contracts and the plurality of parties, often makes it necessary to involve third parties in the arbitration proceedings. Therefore, it is important to take this aspect into account when drafting the dispute resolution clause, as well as when choosing the applicable arbitration rules.
Searching for additional financing routes, in the form of debt rather than equity, could benefit startup founders by curtailing their dilution in equity rounds and also have other advantages for the companies themselves. This would contribute to encouraging more young entrepreneurs to start and carry on with their projects and would also benefit venture capital funds, key and irreplaceable players, in that they would have more and stronger investment opportunities.
In view of the current overload of judicial bodies as a result of the COVID-19 standstill, arbitration can take a step forward and come to the rescue of the parties in dispute who want their conflicts to be resolved quickly.
The Finance Ministry has published a bill of amendment to the laws governing corporate income tax (bill of September 15, 2020). The bill states that corporate income tax will start being levied on limited partnerships, and places new obligations on the so-called “real estate” companies (spółki nieruchomościowe). Another new piece of legislation places large taxpayers under obligation to publish reports on compliance with their tax strategy.
