China's tax revenue has seen it's highest growth rate in thirteen years, with revenue up 30.8% to more than 3.7 trillion yuan according to the State Administration of Taxation (SAT). The SAT statistics also reportedly revealed a significant increase in tax revenue from urban land use, from sales taxes imposed on real estate, and from the land value added tax. (Source: Tax-News.com)


JPMorgan, the American investment bank, won a £4.2 billion bid battle for Southern Water on Oct.9th in a move expected to lead to fresh consolidation in Britain’s water sector. A consortium led by JPMorgan, which also includes UBS and the Challenger Infrastructure Fund, of Australia, defeated a rival alliance led by Goldman Sachs for the business, which supplies water to more than two million people. Southern, which was advised by Deutsche Bank, was put up for sale by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) this year. (Source: The Times)


Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Chief Executive Donald Tsang announced on Oct.10th that the standard rate of salaries tax will be reduced to 15 percent in 2008-09 and the profits tax on the Government's revenue is to be cut to 16.5 percent in 2008-09. These two measures will cost the Government about 5 billion HK dollars (645 million U.S. dollars) annually. (Source: Xinhua News Agency)


Amendments to Section 5 of the UK's Trade Marks Act 1994 came into force on October 1. Under the new regime, trade mark examiners will no longer automatically refuse applications where there is an earlier similar trade mark unless the holder of the earlier mark wish so. If there is a successful opposition, the applicant could be liable for costs and may not be able to get their mark registered. (Source: LawAndTax-News.com)


China is committed to pushing forward its currency reform but has no timetable for the full convertibility of renminbi, said Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China. China abandoned the policy of pegging the RMB to the U.S. dollar at fixed rate in 2005 and started allowing the exchange rate of the currency to float within a limited range. The Chinese yuan has since accumulated an appreciation of about 10 percent. (Source: xinhuanet.com)


The biggest banking deal ever is likely to conclude on Oct.5th, resulting in the dismemberment of one of Europe's largest banks. A three-way consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC garnered enough support from ABN Amro shareholders to wrap up the deal. The triple split demonstrates an unusual mechanism for getting big transactions done, even as global credit-market turmoil has darkened the deal-making environment. (Source: WSJ.com)


China's landmark Property Law that provides equal protection to both state and private properties was put into effect on Oct.1st. The 247-article law stipulates that no units or individuals may infringe upon the property of the state, the collective and the individual. However, the bill had met with doubts and opposition from people who argued private property should not be leveled with state property. (Source: Xinhua News Agency)


The Court of First Instance issued its long awaited judgment in the Microsoft case. The judgment basically confirms the Commission’s 2004 decision which found that Microsoft had abused its dominant position within the meaning of Article 82 of the EU Treaty. The amount of the fine imposed by the Commission (approximately US$ 700 million) remains unchanged. The Court, however, annulled the appointment of a monitoring trustee charged with the implementation of the interoperability remedy. (Source: mondaq.com)


China received 268,926 patent applications in the first six months of 2007, up 7.3 percent from the corresponding period last year. These patent applications involved inventions, utility models and designs. China had received more than 4.98 million applications for registering trade marks by the end of 2006, with the number of registered trade marks exceeding 2.77 million. (Source: xinhuanet.com)


The coalition government of Prime Minister John Howard has announced a plan to provide some A$34 billion (US$30 billion) in personal tax cuts, as the countdown to next month's general election begins. The tax cuts build on reductions which took effect on July 1, 2007, and will be phased in over three years. With the fall in the top marginal tax rate as part of this tax reform, the government says that Australia’s attractiveness to highly skilled workers from overseas will be enhanced. (Source: Tax-New.com)


China announced that foreign investment banks would finally be allowed to buy stakes in local securities firms. Foreign I-banks will be able to buy up to a third of a local firm by year's end. Meanwhile, the usual cooling measures are in place for the A-share markets. The regulator has suspended approvals of new funds to encourage more Chinese to put their money into QDII schemes. (Source: China Economic Review)


U.S. airplane manufacturer Boeing said on Oct.10 that the delivery of its first 787 Dreamliner jumbo aircraft will be delayed by six months because of problems with assembling the best-selling passenger jet until November or December of 2008. The scheduled time is in May 2008. The company said that the delayed deliveries would not have a material impact on its finances and change its earnings guidance for 2007 and 2008. (Source: Xinhua News Agency)


While computer maker Acer recently made a splash with a big acquisition, another Taiwanese company is quietly storming the global personal-computer market. Now, Asustek is ramping up sales of its own Asus brand computers, planning an eventual split into three separate publicly traded companies -- and sparking new interest from investors. Already, the Asus brand controls about 8% of laptop computer sales in the Asian-Pacific region. (Source: WSJ.com)


As a result of the global credit squeeze, IMF reined in its expectations on Oct.17th for most advanced economies. It forecasts the world's economy to grow by 4.75 percent, just a fraction below its 5.2 percent forecast for 2008. Indeed, the striking thing about the global economy this year is how little it relies on the US as the main engine of growth. For the first time in 2007, China's rapidly expanding economy has provided the largest contribution to global growth. (Source: ftchinese.com)


A 26-year-old woman worth $16.2 billion is the Chinese mainland's richest person, topping a list of tycoons whose wealth has soared amid a boom in stock and property prices, the business magazine Forbes said on Oct.8th. The fortune of Yang Huiyan - also Asia's richest woman - is based on shares in Country Garden Holdings Ltd, a real estate developer founded by her father. Last year's richest woman, Zhang Yin, founder of Nine Dragons Paper Co, fell from No 5 to No 11 on this year's list, though her net worth grew by 125% to $3.4 billion. (Source: LawAndTax-News.com)


Taxmen have launched a crackdown on families who use the seven-year gift rule in a bid to reduce inheritance tax. The move brought accusations that the Government is trying to squeeze yet more money out of bereaved families. Under current laws, any gift given more than seven years before a person's death is not subject to inheritance tax. Money given within that period may be taxed at 40%. (Source: thisismoney.co.uk)


China's top taxation regulator has lowered corporate income tax rates for eight domestic industries, including entertainment, food and beverages, wholesalers and retailers. The new rates will come into effect at the beginning of next year. The move may greatly reduce taxes for medium and small sized companies. By the end of June, 2006, China had 4.3 million registered medium or small companies, which contributed to an average of almost 60 percent of China's general domestic product output and half of the country's tax revenue. (Source: Shanghai Daily)


Bank of Ireland Group has launched a new European retail property portfolio to provide investors with improved diversification than investing in a single property in terms of different retail concepts, locations and varying leases. The portfolio, open for a limited time, has the potential for higher returns using a combination of investor funds and borrowed money to invest in a diversified portfolio of three to four professionally managed European retail properties. (Source: banking-business-review.com)


Statistics from RateFinancials implies Top Chinese companies listed in New York will generate strong earnings growth. However, the analysts found a range of problems, differing by company. No rules were being broken, but poor earnings quality implies the outlook may be less rosy than investors expect. The 10 companies are: PetroChina, China Mobile, China Petroleum & Chemical, China Telecom, China Life Insurance, China Unicom, Huaneng Power International, Yanzhou Coal Mining, Suntech Power Holdings and Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical. (Source: ftchinese.com)


Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling vowed to draw lessons from the recent bank crisis and reform the country's bank system. Thousands of savers queued at the Newcastle-based commercial bank before to get their money out after words spread that it needed emergency funds from the Bank of England. He said that he would change the banking system to offer increased guarantee for people's savings of up to 100,000 pounds in the case of a crisis. (Source: xinhuanet.com)


China and the United States signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to cooperate on increasing energy efficiency in China's industrial sector, which accounts for 70% of the country's energy demand. The MOU followed discussions at the third China-U.S. Energy Policy Dialogue, where the two sides agreed to jointly conduct audits to increase national, regional and local energy efficiency. (Source: China Daily)


Sony Corp. said it would sell the facilities that make specialized chips used in its PlayStation 3 game console to Toshiba Corp., the latest in a series of divestitures aimed at refocusing the company around its core electronics businesses. Sony and Toshiba, which jointly developed the chips with International Business Machines Corp., including the price of the transaction, are being worked out. The companies hope to complete the deal by March. (Source: WSJ.com)


Washington is expected to scrutinise on national security grounds Sept.28's joint acquisition of 3Com, the US networking group, by Huawei Technologies, a Chinese telecoms equipment maker, and Bain Capital, the US private equity firm. Huawei's ownership will remain below 20%. “Any Chinese-related deal that touches on government IT systems is going to be something that the Committee on Foreign Investment looks at closely,” said a former US justice department official. (Source: frchinese.com)


Singapore's Ministry of Finance has accepted 21 of 29 suggestions on the Income Tax (Amendment) Bill 2007 and incorporated them into the final draft Bill. The draft Income Tax (Amendment) Bill 2007 put out for public consultation contained proposed legislation to effect changes announced in Budget 2007, and other changes to be introduced arising from ongoing reviews of the income tax system. (Source: Tax-News.com)


China is displaying its beefed up food quality control initiatives at the Fifth China Agricultural Trade Fair. Bar-coded foodstuffs now allow food inspectors and shopkeepers to instantly read an item's provenance, with the aid of a simple scanner which can then display the information on a computer screen. In a further bid to reassure the public, the government also introduced recall systems for unsafe food on August 31 and launched four-month-long safety inspections nationwide starting from late August. (Source: Xinhua News Agency)