VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Swiss bank Banque Pictet has acknowledged its involvement in a conspiracy with US taxpayers to conceal over $5.6 billion from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The Royal Bank of Canada has released an official statement, explaining that the bank is not guilty for any illegal activities including tax evasion in connection to shell company set up as mentioned in leaked papers from Panama’s Mossack Fonseca. The bank claimed to have high standards to ensure clients would not use its services to evade tax.

The Panama Papers documents leak suggest that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko might be using an offshore company to evade tax. However, the president has denied such accusations, saying that he has not been managing the assets since he became president in 2014.

Panama Papers documents leak ties Argentinian President Mauricio Macri to an offshore company. In a statement in response to many accusations, President Macri revealed that he was never a stakeholder in the company, and that he was not involved in any wrongdoings in regard to that.

The history’s biggest confidential documents leak revealed Russian elites, mostly Mr Putin’s inner circles, as clients of an offshore law firm in Panama. The offshore money trail connected to Mr Putin’s allies is worth $2 billion.

A recent Charles Schwab study revealed that almost half of U.S. investors are addressing their overall financial plan on the tax season. Tax preparation is also associated with more confidence while doing their tax. However, the study also unveiled a room for improvement for investors’ approach to planning their taxes.

India’s gold market is threatened as the government revealed a new jewelry tax regulation, requiring a 1 percent sales tax on gold jewelry. Import taxes has not been changed, even though jewellers have expected the government to eliminate the 10 percent import duty.

Scottish First Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon said in an interview that the country’s economy remains strong even amid challenges that she acknowledges. She expects that the huge deficit would be manageable after separation.

South Africa’s currency has dropped to its four-year low after the news of the country’s finance minister threats of resignation was reported. Finance minister Pravin Gordhan threatens to resign over a spat with Tom Moyane, as the minister demanded the tax commissioner to be dismissed, or he himself would leave.

The move to legalize online poker started six months ago and a few changes have been seen since then. The legalization is expected to stop illegal online gambling that has been going on in the country since the activity was banned, and in turn, could also increase tax revenues for Russia. The rest of terms and time measures on this remain unknown.

A 401k loan is stirring a negative public impression lately and many argues whether it's something worth risking for. Forbes's Investing section contributor Michael Smith gives his expert advice on the matter.

Colombia will delay spending 6 trillion pesos ($2.44 billion), some 3 percent of its national budget, due to a sharp fall in oil revenue, the government said on Saturday.

Britain plans to introduce a tax to target multinationals such as Google Inc (GOOGL.O) and Amazon Inc (AMZN.O) accused of using complex accounting schemes to cut their payments on earnings in the country.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Friday if the country returns to a period of excessive yen strength it would lead to a further hollowing out of manufacturing and job losses.

A top Japanese government official said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should delay a planned sales-tax increase, the strongest sign yet that economic weakness is causing concern among those close to the premier ahead of the difficult tax decision.