Category Archives: Thought leadership

DAC6: Ireland releases a new DAC6 Schema but maintains manual filing for LPP reports

The Irish Revenue has released an updated version of the DAC6 Filing Guidelines.

Like many other EU member states, the Revenue has also released a new XML Schema, referred to as Version 1.2. This is in response to the amended DAC6 Central Directory Business Validation Rules by the European Commission. The updated schema can be found here and will apply for all DAC6 reports from 1 August 2021.

To facilitate the migration to the new schema, the Revenue’s electronic filing system for DAC6 on ROS will be unavailable from 1 August 2021. It will reopen on 17 August 2021.

Any DAC6 reports that are protected by legal professional privilege should still be filed via the Revenue’s excel template containing specific information that can be revealed despite privilege.

All the amendments are being updated in VinciWorks’ Omnitrack DAC6 reporting portal. 

Click here to find out more about VinciWorks’ award-winning DAC6 compliance training and reporting product.

Upcoming webinar: GDPR — Back to the Office

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Wednesday 25 August, 12:00pm (UK)

As COVID-19 restrictions are lifted and businesses begin to return to the office, companies are taking a variety of approaches to managing the transition. While some are staying at home for now and others have gone back full time, most are opting for a hybrid working policy. While this might be a sensible and fair solution for the time being, having staff work both at home as well as the office raises several data security and GDPR compliance concerns.

In this webinar, Director of Best Practice Gary Yantin and Director of Learning and Content Nick Henderson will explore the key things you need to remember to keep data safe during the latest transition.

The webinar will cover:

  • How companies are transitioning back to the office
  • How hybrid working works
  • Data protection risks in a hybrid working environment
  • How hackers and scammers took advantage during the pandemic
  • Best practice for data security with hybrid working

Free registration

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DAC6: Member States introduce reporting reforms

Following the UK’s exit from the European Union and in response to the amended DAC6 Central Directory Business Validation Rules by the European Commission, many EU Member States have updated or are in the process of updating their DAC6 XSD reporting schemas.

Belgium

The Belgian tax authorities have released a new XSD Schema version 1.3 and an updated User Guide. This applies to all filings from 1 July 2021. 

Cyprus

The Cyprus tax department has released a new XSD Schema version 4.04. Submissions of the XML file are via the Ariadne portal. There will be no administrative fines for overdue DAC6 submissions until 30 September 2021.

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Upcoming webinar: Code of conduct — How to get your staff on board

Wednesday 11 August, 12:00pm (UK)

A strong code of conduct is vital for employees to know what is expected of them.

How do you ensure your staff are able to easily grasp your code and put it into practice without feeling overwhelmed or bored? And how do you succinctly cover topics as diverse as discrimination and harassment to bribery and cyber security?

In this webinar, we will be joined by the Head of Ethics and Compliance at Hershey’s, a global confectionery brand, to explore the challenges of effectively managing and training on codes of conduct.

The webinar will cover:

  • The challenges of code of conduct compliance
  • How different organisations are sharing their codes of conduct with their staff
  • What we can learn from Hershey’s code of conduct
  • What effective code of conduct training looks like
  • What VinciWorks can do to help

Free registration

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Is your business model violating international sanctions?

For global companies, particularly in the financial services sector, sanctions compliance is becoming ever more fraught. Payments and money transfers are becoming ever more globalised, and new businesses are popping up to take advantage of a booming market. But when it comes to sanctions compliance, the costs of getting it wrong are rising.

Payoneer is a firm specialising in business-to-business cross-border payments. It is used by global leaders like Airbnb, Amazon, Google and Upwork to facilitate cross-border wire transfers, online payments, and debit card services. The company also offers facilities for small and medium-sized businesses to send payments anywhere in the world, quickly and cheaply.

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Duty to prevent sexual harassment set to be required of UK employers

Third party harassment and extension of timelines to bring a claim also included in a new package of measures

The government’s long-awaited legislative response to MeToo has been laid out. The response to the 2018 consultation on sexual harassment in the workplace spells out sweeping plans to extend ‘failure to prevent’ laws already on the books for bribery and tax evasion to sexual harassment.

Women and Equalities minister Liz Truss, said: 

“We will be providing further protections to employees who are the victims of sexual harassment, whilst also furnishing employers with the motivation and support to put in place practises and policies which respond to the needs of their organisation.”

The package of measures will include a new preventative duty on employers, a duty to protect employees from sexual harassment by third parties such as customers, criminalisation of street harassment, a statutory code of practice for employers on how to tackle sexual harassment in the workplace, and potentially extending the time allowed to bring a sexual harassment case to an employment tribunal from three to six months. 

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On-demand webinar: Mental Health — Returning to the Office

With the UK’s COVID-19 vaccination roll-out in full swing and restrictions being repealed, companies are reevaluating their office policies and home working rules. But many people are anxious, or at least conflicted, about returning to in-person work, whether for health reasons or due to the flexibility they feel they’ll lose.

To help organisations with the process, we have recorded a short on-demand webinar. In this video, our Director of Learning and Content Nick Henderson explores some of the mental health aspects of returning to the office, sharing key ideas and tools to help manage this transition for your workforce.

Watch now

Free COVID-19 compliance resources

VinciWorks has created several helpful resources such as guides, on-demand webinars, policy templates, courses and more to help businesses manage the pandemic and beyond.

COVID-19 resource page

Omnitrack version 2.41.0

Shared users on the grid

  • The list of shared users can be displayed on the grid for each submission by clicking ‘show/hide fields’ and selecting the ‘shared users’ column. The shared users can also be included in exports to Excel for reporting. 

Visibility conditions support ‘is not’ logic

  • The visibility logic in Form Builder has been updated to allow users to set an ‘is not’ condition. 
  • For example, if you need a specific workflow for your UK office you can set up branching logic for all other countries by setting a section to appear when the country selected is not the UK. 

Some work behind the scenes to make the application faster

  • We enhanced the load time of the reports and submissions pages.

DAC6 reporting 

  • As of 13 July 2021, the German tax authority (BZST) is updating its reporting system. Reporting will be temporarily disabled and return on 20 July 2021 when they bring it back online. Omnitrack has been updated to use the new reporting schema from this date.
  • The reporting schema for Belgium has also been updated to reflect the latest version released for reporting in Belgium. 

Bug fixes

  • Fixed various issues with confirmation checkbox fields
    • Typing into the field causing the cursor to jump
    • Checkbox not displaying when admin views a submission after it had been saved
  • Fixed an issue where lookup subfields were appearing out of order
  • Fixed an issue where the reports share link redirected to an incorrect page
  • Fixed the height of paragraph fields shown by conditional logic

How Omnitrack could have helped Apple: Employee surveys and a timely Omnitrack use case

Back to the office survey dashboard

What does a “return to normal” look like?

With the coronavirus vaccine roll-out gathering pace, individuals and businesses are cautiously looking to return to a life that feels akin to normal. But determining when and how to return to the office is no simple matter, especially since employers and employees might have differing opinions on the matter.

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Modern slavery, EU corporate due diligence and ESG

What’s changing in the world of mandatory corporate compliance?

The EU’s proposed new corporate due diligence and corporate accountability directive will cover companies that sell to the EU, not just those based there. Businesses will be required to identify, address and remedy their impact on human rights and the environment. Crucially, this is likely to go up and down the value chain, which means customers as well as suppliers. Businesses could be sued inside the EU for human rights violations or environmental damage committed by their customers or end-users of their products in third countries. 

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