The 2013 Fall International Tenant Representative Alliance (ITRA) Global Corporate Real Estate Conference will be held in Scottsdale, Arizona on September 20-22, 2013. ITRA Global is one of the largest global real estate organizations devoted to the representation of corporate tenants and occupiers of commercial real estate worldwide. This event will be attended by top executives and decision-makers of ITRA and select guests from North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia.

The VIP Access Sponsor for the conference is the Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA), the state’s leading economic development organization with a streamlined mission to grow and strengthen Arizona’s economy. The ACA uses a three-pronged approach to advance the overall economy: (1) Recruit out-of-state companies to expand their operations in Arizona; (2) work with existing companies to grow their business in Arizona and beyond; and (3) partner with entrepreneurs and companies large and small to create new jobs and businesses in targeted industries.

ITRA Global is an organization of real estate professionals specializing in representing tenants and buyers in the leasing, acquisition and disposition of office, industrial and retail facilities. With coverage in major markets around the world, ITRA Global is one of the largest organizations dedicated to representing tenants and occupiers of commercial real estate.

The ITRA Global Conference provides an opportunity for state economic development leaders to showcase Arizona as a prime location for business expansion. The will focus on business development for the group’s affiliated commercial real estate professionals. These real estate executives serve as site selection experts, representing companies seeking business locations around the world for lease or investment.

While meeting in Arizona, executives will learn about Arizona’s competitive business advantages, as well as receive in-depth information about state and regional business incentives and services for corporate location or expansion.

“Showcasing Arizona’s pro-business value proposition to these key influencers is an incredible opportunity to position Arizona as top-of-mind with the corporate decision makers they represent,” said Sandra Watson, ACA’s president and CEO. “We look forward to hosting ITRA Global executives, ensuring they come away with a strong understating of why Arizona is a nationally ranked Best State for Business, and further enhancing our efforts to attract new business to the state.”

“Arizona is a prime location for global business,” said Michael Coretz, broker of Commercial Real Estate Group of Tucson (CREGT) and ITRA Global affiliate who was instrumental in bringing ITRA Global and its fall gathering to the attention of ACA. “The state has a lot to offer, especially to businesses in renewable energy, aerospace and defense, technology and innovation, bioscience and healthcare. My ITRA colleagues deserve to know how Arizona might fit with their clients’ needs.”

Commercial Real Estate Group of Tucson specializes in representing commercial real estate tenants and corporate users in Tucson and Arizona, across the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia as a member of ITRA.

“Our colleagues will be thoroughly impressed with the many benefits the region has to offer,” says Gordon Rasmussen, principal of ITRA Global/Martin Property Advisors Inc. of Phoenix, another ITRA Global affiliate member in Arizona.

More information on ITRA Global can be obtained by contacting Michael Coretz at (520) 299-3400 or Beth Wade, ITRA Executive Director, at (706) 654.3201. The Arizona Commerce Authority can be reached at (602) 845-1231.

Panda Express has purchased a 34,106 square foot pad at Houghton Town Center for $615,000 ($18 PSF). It will be joining Walmart and Discount Tire there along with other multitenant shop space planned for next summer by a joint venture with Bourn Partners and Diamond Ventures. At full build-out Houghton Town Center at the southwest corner of Old Vail Road and Houghton in Southwest Tucson will total approximately 750,000 square-feet on 85 acres.

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[mepr-show rules=”58038″]Panda Express celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, with 23,000 associates and over 1,600 stores in 48 States and abroad.

“Our goal is to make life delicious,” says Andrew Cherng, co-founder and CEO of Panda Express in a statement when introducing the “Make Life Delicious” slogan.

The U.S. restaurant industry in their equivalent to the Fortune 500 list published each year by QSR magazine ranks the 50 largest quick service and fast casual restaurant chains in terms of total annual U.S. domestic revenue. Panda Express has been the world leader in the Asian dining experiences category for several years.

In 2012, Panda served nearly 70 million pounds of its classic, white long-grain fried rice. That’s enough to fill 158 Olympic-size swimming pools.

It all started forty years ago, when Andrew Cherng and his father, master chef Ming-Tsai Cherng, opened the first Panda Inn in Southern California, their vision was to serve upscale, authentic Chinese cuisine, offering the opportunity for guests to connect over a traditional meal.

In 1983, Andrew took the opportunity for inspired Chinese cuisine, and along with his wife, Peggy, opened the first Panda Express at the Glendale Galleria in Southern California.

As Panda Express hit significant growth milestones, including opening its 100th store in 1992, 500th in 2002, and 1,500th in 2012, the company reaffirmed its commitment to people development by implementing the “2020 Vision.”

Panda Restaurant Group’s 2020 Vision is for the company to be the world leader in people development, providing growth opportunities for Panda Restaurant Group’s more than 23,000 associates to continuously better their lives, both personally and professionally.

“We are honored to have found success by empowering our associates to learn, grow, and achieve their potential,” Andrew Cherng said earlier this year. “As Panda Restaurant Group continues its journey, we reaffirm our commitment to providing each of our associates with the opportunity to thrive, and each of our guests a satisfying meal and enjoyable experience.”
In 1999, Panda Cares was launched as a company-wide community involvement initiative that provides food, funding, and volunteer services to children’s organizations, disaster relief, and other worthy causes. To date, Panda Cares has given millions of dollars of in-kind donations to numerous nonprofit organizations, schools, and hospitals.

Whether providing an adventurous taste for each guests’ palate, or hosting monthly learning sessions at corporate headquarters, each aspect of Panda Restaurant Group pays homage to the original vision of the very first Panda Inn which opened in 1973: to “Make Life Delicious.”

This will be the 17^th location in Tucson for Panda Express.

Paul Schloss and Alan Tanner with Bourn Partners in Tucson represented the developer, Houghton Developers LLC while Pete Villaescusa and Jesse Peron with CBRE of Tucson represented the buyer.

Schloss and Tanner should be reached at (520) 323-1005. Villaescusa and Peron can be contacted at (520) 323-5100.[/mepr-show]
[ismember]Sale Date: 8/29/2013. All cash transaction [/ismember]

While Syria dominated most of our news last week, the leaders of the G-20 economies were meeting last week in St. Petersburg, Russia to discuss re-shaping international regulations and practices that would stem corporate tax evasion, among other things.

Consider these two stories reported in a Canadian Business press over the weekend and you’ll see why this was such a big agenda item at the G-20 Summit:

Apple has paid little or no corporate tax on some $74 billion in income over the past four years. That’s because the tech giant oversees all of its business outside the Americas through a number of units in Ireland. These subsidiaries are virtually tax-free because America doesn’t tax companies incorporated outside the U.S. and Ireland exempts locally incorporated companies if they are managed abroad.

Under U.S. tax law, citizens and permanent residents must file and, if applicable, pay income taxes, even if they don’t live in the U.S. and have no U.S. sources of income. Some time ago, the IRS fined an American retired widow who’d been living in Canada for 30 years $75,000 for failing to file U.S. tax returns. The penalty was 25 per cent of the woman’s $300,000 in savings held in a U.S. bank account.

The tax treatment of Apple when compared to this widow seems unjust to say the least. But that’s not the only reason why international leaders are interested in corporate tax reform for the U.S.

The main reason is this: The IRS has no recourse against legal even if morally questionable corporate tax practices. It can, slam individual taxpayers who commit forgivable, and often unintentional, infractions. But there is nothing to be done for legal corporate tax dodgers..

According to the U.S. Congressional Research Service, estimates of how much corporate tax avoidance costs Uncle Sam range from $10 to $60 billion a year. For individual tax evasion, the range is $40 to $70 billion. Both are a hefty drain on government coffers, but cracking down on individuals, well it seems it’s just easier.

“Most provisions to address profit shifting by multinational firms would involve changing the tax law,” reads the CRS report. On individual tax evasion, on the other hand, the IRS has found ample margin to tighten the screw simply by stepping up enforcement, changing practices and increasing information sharing with other governments — in other words, without amending the law.

Of course, catching and punishing individual tax cheats is a good thing. But anecdotal evidence suggests the IRS’s tighter net is trapping lots of small fish, average-middle-class taxpayers who simply missed the fine print. And there are many of them among the hundreds of thousands of Americans living in Canada and Canada-U.S. double citizens.
In the G-20 Declaration on global corporate tax loopholes, the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation noted: “When tax rules permit businesses to reduce their tax burden by shifting their income away from jurisdictions where income producing activities are conducted, other taxpayers in that jurisdiction bear a greater share of the burden.”

Eliminating loopholes and opportunities for legal arbitrage by international corporations might reduce the pressure on tax agencies to go after people who were obviously unaware

The published Tax Annex of the G-20 Leaders’ Declaration states: “Base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) relates chiefly to instances where the interaction of different tax rules result in tax planning that may be used by multinational enterprises (MNEs) to artificially shift profits out of the countries where they are earned, resulting in very low taxes or even double non-taxation. These practices, if left unchecked, undermine the fairness and integrity of our tax systems. They fundamentally distort competition, because businesses that engage in cross-border BEPS strategies gain a competitive advantage compared with enterprises that operate mostly at the domestic level. Fair, transparent and efficient tax systems are not only key pillars for sound public finances, they also provide a sustainable framework for dynamic economies. For these reasons, G20 Leaders identified the need to address BEPS as a priority in their tax agenda at the Los Cabos Summit in June 2012. Additionally, we must achieve better international coordination on taxes. In this regard, we must move forward in fighting BEPS practices so that we ensure a fair contribution of all productive sectors to the financing of public spending in our countries.”

To read the full published G-20 Declaration click here: https://en.g20russia.ru/news/20130906/782776427.html

One final note: The IRS does wave or reduce penalties for individuals in some cases, and the woman from the anecdote here might have been spared — but horrendous IRS fines remain an ordeal for many average U.S. taxpayers and apparently the world is watching with interest to see what we are going to do about these injustices.