Wissam Abousleiman

Here we see Wissam Abousleiman of Abousleiman & Co meeting with Jeb Burton (and his wife) of The Burton Law Firm during Jeb’s vacation in Copenhagen. Here at IR Global, we love it when members send us photos when they are travelling and meet other IR members. If you are due to be travelling, or have travelled recently and have…

I will be in Berlin competing in a Euro Karate tournament this Sept. 22/23 and for a bit of fun I wanted to invite local members to come and watch / go for dinner.  About the competition, the dates are: September 20-24, 2018 & this is the event link: https://iskf.com/iskf-euro-shoto-cup-berlin-september-20-24-2018/ competition days are the 22nd…

To be straightforward, it depends on the level of investment. Some international clients who want to have Lebanon as a Middle Eastern operations base have a representative office here instead of a Lebanese corporation. They only have admin or marketing staff in order to promote the product line, so it is not a taxable entity.…

The major tax pitfall we have in Lebanon is not directly linked to the tax itself, but to the entity’s performance. Most of our cases have been to do with compliance, involving lots of companies which never really paid attention to the laws around residency. There are regulations that define who is tax resident or…

Traditionally, we have always had holding companies attracted to Lebanon. There is an added value because of the bank secrecy laws which are still in effect for anyone who is not American. Lately though, the Lebanese Government has been trying to make it even more attractive for foreign companies to set up in Lebanon. This…

There is no doubt in today’s world that compliance is a major focus for businesses as governments impose new measures to establish controls on transfers of funds in a bid to combat money laundering, terrorism financing and tax evasion.Of course, this puts a lot of strain on the world’s economies and the means by which…

It is said that there are more Lebanese outside Lebanon then there are in Lebanon, so it comes as no surprise that Lebanon has more than 30 tax treaties, especially when the country’s diaspora is highly engaged in holding assets, investing in their homeland and sending savings back to family members. Lebanon has always been…

In Lebanon, we still have bank secrecy laws, yet the issue is that CRS undermines that secrecy. As a result, there was a lot of debate about the adoption of CRS, but it was eventually implemented, alongside several laws around access to public information. If we hadn’t done this, the country would have been blacklisted…

I was saying earlier that there was a huge long debate between the tax authorities and the Lebanese Central Bank about access to personal bank account information. Any request is processed by the Ministry of Finance before going to the central bank. So far all the financial institutions have taken steps, starting with staff training…

When it comes to Lebanon, CRS and tax issues are a tricky subject. Many people have foreign passports and there is a huge diaspora going back and forth with interests in foreign countries. A lot of people don’t realise the impact CRS will have and that is mostly due to lack of knowledge and tax…

We have no cases yet because Lebanon is yet to start with the CRS process, but CRS issues have been repeatedly brought up in client meetings with regard to how best to be compliant and deal with issues of anonymity. When it comes to establishing companies, anonymity is something clients can’t have any more in…