Cogent Communications, which is estimated to carry 1/4 of the global Internet traffic, terminated access to major Russian internet service providers.
In justification, CEO Schaeffer said that “I can’t pick good Russian traffic from bad. It’s just a big pipe.”
This move will affect streaming services such as Netflix as Cognet Communication is specialised in providing high volume Internet traffic.
More information is available here.
The OECD has released public comments on the model draft rules for Pillar One. The public consultation closed on 18 February 2022.
Comments said that there was a need for predictability, and that any nexus rules covering companies without a a physical presence in a jurisdiction ‘should be clear, measurable, predictable, and applied consistently and neutrally across all industries and business models, and across all jurisdictions’.
Comments also reiterated the need for signatories ‘to adopt and fully implement the new consensus to ensure that all income is properly taxed only once across all applicable jurisdictions’.
According to UN statistics, there are currently over 80 million persons with disabilities living in Africa. In Ghana persons with disabilities are estimated to be 3% of the total population. In 2018, internet penetration in Ghana was estimated to be 30.8%; in 2021 it is reported to have increased to 50% penetration. The global pandemic that introduced restrictions to physical gatherings including workplaces, educational institutions, shopping opportunities, etc. all moved toward the digital space, accelerating this transition.
However for the persons with disabilities in Ghana, things either remained the same or grew worse due to lack of digital access, digital literacy, financial empowerment, and other related challenges.
The OECD has released draft model rules for Pillar One of the new global tax rules, specifically the so-called nexus and revenue sourcing for Amount A. The rules are open to public consultation.
The OECD’s tax rules say that very large companies will have to pay taxes on 25% of the profit they make above a 10% threshold of revenue (this is called Amount A), and will need to pay it in those countries where they are the most economically active. Countries will therefore have the right to pocket some of the taxes (on Amount A) based on a complex formula for claiming it, and tied to economic activity and the country’s own GDP (the nexus rule).
Consultations close on 18 February 2022.
The implementation of Pillar Two is ahead of Pillar One; the OECD released the model rules for Pillar Two in December 2021.
To improve access to digital and assistive technologies for Persons with disabilities, Ireland’s Minister for Disabilities, Ms. Anne Rabbitte, announced the call for projects under a new once-off €2 million Digital and Assistive Technology Fund. The call went out in December, 2021. After a rigorous selection process, 11 projects out of 79 submissions were selected, under the Health Service Executive’s (HSE) CREATE initiative.
The Cooperative Real Engagement for Assistive Technology Enhancement (CREATE) initiative seeks to ensure that service users and providers work together to identify what will make a real difference to individual users of digital and assistive technology (DAT).These projects demonstrated the extent to which they were person-centered, willingness to work collaboratively across different service providers and to really engage with digital and assistive technology users through a clear process of co-design.
The Minister secured €2 million for the initiative in Budget 2022. Announcing the allocation of the funding, Ms. Rabbitte said: “I am delighted to see this funding supporting a range of innovative projects which will greatly assist people with disabilities. Digital and Assistive Technologies are a crucial tool to allow people with disabilities to live a more independent life of their own choosing.”
Brazil’s top electoral authority, the TSE, is pondering a ban on the messaging app Telegram during the run-up to the next elections because it has not responded to requests to help combat the spread of misinformation. Luis Roberto Barroso, head of the TSE electoral court, explained that the TSE has already entered into partnerships with almost all the main social media platforms operating in the country to combat misinformation about the legitimacy of Brazil’s electoral system. However, Telegram has not yet responded. Telegram’s development team is based in Dubai and has no representative office in Brazil, where it represents the second-most popular messaging service. Current President Jair Bolsonaro has 1 million subscribers on Telegram, where many of his supporters resorted after other platforms, such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, removed some of his postings. Barroso said that since mid-December he has sought to meet with Telegram executive director and founder Pavel Durov to discuss ways to combat the spread of false information before the upcoming election and warned that it will discuss measures to be taken in early February given the lack of response.
The EU’s plans to swiftly adopt the new tax directive, proposed in December 2021, to implement part of the OECD’s global tax rules was met with skepticism from Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, and Malta.
Speaking during an Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) meeting, the foreign ministers of the four countries expressed concerns with the process and speed for adopting the directive, even though they showed support for the global minimum tax rules:
The OECD’s new global tax rules are composed of two Pillars:
China is launching a final push in the adoption of the central bank digital currency. The Central Bank of China issued a mobile app for handling the e-yuan (e-CNY), the digitalised version of its currency. The app can be downloaded on Chinese Android and Apple app stores on Tuesday in Shanghai (China). China is conducting a two years long pilot programme on launching the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
China reported significant progress towards full implementation of the CBDC, and the Peoples Bank of China’s Governor Yi Gang said in late 2020 that China would continue to advance the development of its CBDC and improve its design and usage.
The European Commission has proposed a directive to implement the OECD’s new global tax rules, including the 15% minimum tax rate for corporations. The directive ‘reflects the global OECD agreement, with some necessary adjustments, to guarantee conformity with EU law’, the text states.
The proposal is based on the OECD’s Model Rules, released in December 2021, for the introduction of Global anti-Base Erosion (GloBE) rules into national domestic tax laws, as part of the OECD’s Two-Pillar solution. Domestic laws need to be operational by 1 January 2023.
Tax rules in the EU must be agreed to unanimously. Some countries, however, have already expressed concern that the timeline to implement the rules is too short.
The OECD has released the Pillar Two Model Rules (explained also in a nutshell by the OECD), which provide a template for jurisdictions to translate the Pillar Two rules into domestic law in a coordinated and timely way.
The OECD’s Two-Pillar Solution, agreed to in July 2021 by over 131 countries, addresses the global taxation issues arising from the digitalisation of the economy. The finalised framework, including details on how to implement the rules, was agreed to in October 2021.
Pillar Two consists of two rules intended for introduction in national domestic tax laws – together known as the Global anti-Base Erosion (GloBE) rules – as well as a treaty-based rule. The OECD Model Rules contain provisions in respect of the GloBE Model Rules only.
