Articles and updates

My annual visit to China is a perfect chance to learn, enjoy and share – it is a pleasure to share some of insights with everyone. Demolishing non-compliant buildings From big cities such as Shanghai with more than 20 million people, to little villages like my grandma’s home village Caohu with only hundreds of residents, […]

New Foreign Trust Disclosure Regime – Are You Ready? The passing of the Taxation (Business Tax, Exchange of Information, and Remedial Matters) Act 2017 in February 2017, saw the introduction of new disclosure rules for foreign trusts. A reaction to the so-called Panama papers published in early 2016, which suggested NZ might be considered a […]

Common Reporting Standard (CRS) and Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) From 1 July 2017, New Zealand financial institutions are required to undertake due diligence on their account holders, including the controlling person of certain entity accounts. The purpose of the due diligence, is to identify non-resident account holders and controlling persons, and once identified, the […]

Recently I spent some time in Addis Ababa – I was on an IMF Mission working with the Ethiopian Customs and Revenue Authority. Addis is a city at 2,300 metres (so you notice when you climb stairs) and the climate is very temperate (I found it slightly cooler than Auckland and far less humid). Ethiopia […]

“I’m bored.” How many times as a child did you say that to your mum or dad? And I’m sure their response was never the answer you wanted or was never something exciting to do. My mum’s answer went something like this… “If you are bored how about you go clean your room or why […]