Carnival Cruises 2008 Annual Report Download - page 29

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Our UK non-shipping activities that do not qualify under the UK tonnage tax regime,
which are not currently forecast to be significant, remain subject to normal UK corporation
tax.
Italian, German and Spanish Income Tax
Carnival plc's German and Spanish brands, AIDA and Ibero, are both subsidiaries of
Costa. AIDA's income is principally subject to Italian income tax and the majority of its
profits are exempt from German corporation taxes by virtue of the Italy/Germany double tax
treaty. Ibero's operations are largely subject to Italian tonnage tax and its Spanish
operations are minimal.
Effective through fiscal 2014, Costa has elected to enter into the Italian Tonnage Tax
regime. This regime taxes Costa's, AIDA's and Ibero's shipping profits, as defined and which
is most of their income, calculated by reference to the net tonnage of their qualifying
vessels. Most of the income not considered to be shipping profits for Italian Tonnage Tax
purposes will be taxed under the favorable Italian tax regime for Costa's, AIDA's and
Ibero's Italian-registered ships.
Australian Income Tax
P&O Cruises Australia is a division of Carnival plc, and the income from this operation
is subject to UK tonnage tax as discussed above. The majority of this operation's profits
are exempt from Australian corporation taxes by virtue of the UK/Australian tax treaty.
U.S. State Income Taxes
In addition to the U.S. federal income and branch level taxes discussed above, Carnival
Corporation & plc and certain of its affiliates are subject to various U.S. state income
taxes generally imposed on each state's portion of the U.S. source income subject to U.S.
federal income taxes. However, the state of Alaska imposes an income tax on its allocated
portion of the total income of companies doing business in Alaska and certain of their
affiliated companies.
H. Website Access to Carnival Corporation & plc SEC Reports
Our Form 10-K, joint Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, joint Current Reports on Form 8-K,
joint proxy statement related to our annual stockholders meeting, Section 16 filings and all
amendments to those reports are available, free of charge on our home pages at
www.carnivalcorp.com and www.carnivalplc.com and on the SEC's home page at www.sec.gov as
soon as reasonably practicable after we have electronically filed or furnished these reports
with the SEC. The content of any website referred to in this Form 10-K is not incorporated
by reference into this Form 10-K unless expressly noted.
Item 1A. Risk Factors.
You should consider carefully the specific risk factors set forth below and the other
information contained or incorporated by reference in this Form 10-K, as these are important
factors, among others, that could cause our actual results to differ from our expected or
historical results. You should note that the risks listed below are not the only risks we
face. The risks described below are only those risks relating to our operations and
financial condition that we consider material. There may be additional risks, that we
currently consider not to be material, or which we are not currently aware of, and any of
these risks could have the effects set forth above. Some of the statements in this section
and elsewhere in this Form 10-K are "forward-looking statements." For a discussion of those
statements and of other factors to consider see the "Cautionary Note Concerning Factors That
May Affect Future Results" section below.
• General economic and business conditions, including fuel price increases and
declines in the securities and real estate markets, and perceptions of these
conditions may adversely impact the levels of our potential vacationers'
discretionary income and net worth and this group's confidence in their country's
economy and, consequently, reduce our cruise brands' net revenue yields and
profitability.
Demand for cruises is dependent on the underlying perceived or actual economic strength
of the countries from which cruise companies source their guests. Adverse changes in the
perceived or actual economic climate, such as higher fuel prices, higher interest rates,