In the story of Alice in Wonderland, Humpty Dumpty tells Alice: “‘When I use a word...it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less”. Does the US-Israel tax treaty mean whatever the Israeli Tax Authority (ITA) chooses it to mean? This looks like the outcome of ... Read More

Leon Harris and Yoad Frenkel In a word, No. The Knesset has just passed an amendment which lessens but not removes the 10 year Israeli tax holiday for foreign income of new residents and senior returning residents who lived abroad for at least 10 years (“Olim”) (Income Tax Ordinance amendment 272, ... Read More

Can a business recover VAT on war security expenditure? In many countries that have VAT or similar taxes, a business can claim back VAT on business expenditure but not private expenditure. So is war security expenditure business or private? The Israeli CPA Institute took this dilemma to the Israeli VAT Authorities ... Read More

The Israeli Tax Authority (ITA) has just published a notice about optimizing charity donations (“Credit for Donations of capital Assets In Kind” April 21, 2024). Charitable giving or Tzedakah is an important part of the Jewish religion. Helping others in need is not only a good deed, it can be tax ... Read More

With a war to finance and covid 19 expenses still lingering, Israeli taxation is going only one way, which isn’t down. Please don’t shoot the messenger. Coming soon: higher VAT and perhaps an electric car travel  tax. Value Added Tax (VAT): The standard rate of VAT in Israel will rise from 17% ... Read More

The Israeli government published a draft bill on February 22, 2024 proposing to repeal the ten year reporting exemption for Olim. This will relate to foreign income and assets of theirs and of trusts they are a party to. But this only relates to disclosure – the existing ten-year exemption ... Read More

Israel is moving onto a mandatory system of e-invoicing, known as “Israeli Invoices”, on April 1. This will be no joke for quite a few Israeli businesses. The date was pushed back 3 months due to the war. In a nutshell, if a business wants to issue a Tax Invoice for ... Read More

The war continues, the Israeli economy continues to struggle. Some IDF reservists have returned home. New reservists are being called up and conscription may be extended. It is estimated there are around 120,000 evacuees from the South and the North. Below is a non-exhaustive wartime update. War Compensation: The war compensation and ... Read More

One of the many repercussions of the Israel-Hamas war concerns double national insurance (=social security) also known as Bituach Leumi in Hebrew. Imagine an Israeli who relocated “permanently” to the USA (or many other countries – see below) with his family but patriotically returns to Israel to serve in the IDF ... Read More