Tax Jobs - Weekly Highlights

This week's job highlight is a senior end tax planning role that I am working on for a large US multinational, based in London. This type of role is fairly uncommon, given that it is working almost exclusively on tax planning across the EMEA & Asia region and tax-led corporate transactions work. The role is part of a flat structure tax team, that basically deals with all tax planning for the group outside the US. The group tax function has a separate team dedicated to the tax compliance and reporting. This role also carries a very competitive salary package, including a final salary pension scheme, which is now very rare to see for new appointments.

Senior Tax Planning Manager, London
c.£85,000 + Car + Bonus + Final Salary Pension
Click here for more details

In-house Transfer Pricing leader moves back to consulting

Source: International Tax Review

NERA Economic Consulting, an independent international firm of economists, has appointed a veteran of Deloitte and Andersen as head of its UK transfer pricing group. Graham Poole, a specialist in advanced pricing agreements and transfer pricing for intangibles, joins the firm as an associate director. He has been active in transfer pricing for 14 years in the consumer goods, professional services, automotives, oil and gas, shipping, high-tech manufacturing, software and financial services sectors.

Before joining NERA, Poole was responsible for group-wide transfer pricing at Cadbury Schweppes, where his responsibilities included the design, implementation, documentation, and defence of transfer pricing policies in all areas of the business. He previously helped establish new practices and practice areas in transfer pricing while working for Arthur Andersen and Deloitte in the UK.

In-House Tax People Moves - 2nd Quarter 2008

Asset management group Threadneedle has recruited Holly Page as a Senior Tax Manager into their London in-house tax function. Holly has a banking tax background, joining from Gulf International Bank, where she was stand-alone Tax Manager in London. Holly initially trained as an ACA in tax with RSM Robson Rhodes.

Retail shopping centres group Westfield has hired Amanda Clarke as a new Tax Manager into the UK tax team, reporting to the Head of Tax. Amanda has relocated to London from Manchester, where she was the stand-alone Group Tax Manager for Tote, the betting group. Amanda is ACA and CTA qualified.

SHL Group, the leading authority on psychometric testing and people performance, has recently brought in David Jackson as their Head of Group Tax & Compliance. David is a highly experienced commercial Head of Tax, having led tax functions for international groups such as Foster Wheeler, London International Group and Ocean Group Plc.

Tax Lawyer McKenna returns to practice from in-house

Source: Taxation 2 magazine

Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) has recruited leading tax lawyer Michael McKenna as a Partner in its strategic drive to enhance its tax capabilities.

Michael was a tax counsel at Goldman Sachs International, where he advised its divisions on the tax implications of all aspects of their businesses and transactions outside the US. Before that he spent seven years within the tax team at Clifford Chance, where he advised on a broad range of corporate tax issues with a particular focus on real estate clients as well as finance and securitisation transactions.

SG comment: I do not know Michael McKenna, but from this news flow, this seems a good example of a highly astute tax lawyer who is managing his tax career extremely well - 7 years with Clifford Chance (incredibly good name), at which point he is perfectly well placed to move in-house as a tax counsel. Following a period of time with Goldman Sachs (incredibly good name), not sure how long, he makes a return to practice as a Tax Partner. I am guessing (and I have no evidence to show this) that he has made it to Partner level with a leading law firm quicker that if he had stayed with Clifford Chance, because of the very valuable and CV enhancing role with Goldmans. As with a lot of things, timing (and high quality experience) could be everything for a great tax career.

Vodafone Head of Tax views on tax avoidance

Source: AccountancyAge.com

Following my profile of Joel Walters, Group Head of Tax of Vodafone, on this blog back in December 2007, he has recently made some interesting comments regarding tax avoidance. He feels that tax agencies can become too obsessed with the issue.

In an interview with the Chartered Institute of Taxation and The Association of Taxation Technician's journal Tax Adviser, Joel Walters said: 'There is a danger, I think, that multi-national corporations in particular are perceived as avoiding tax in respect of how they structure their operations, and the first thing I'd say is that tax avoidance, defined as not paying the amount of tax the law requires, is actually very rare.'

He added that it was also 'very rare' for tax to drive the business decisions of multi-nationals.

The big numbers involved in tax mean a perception is created that there are big problems. 'That creates an illusion that there are significant numbers of issues. Then I'm concerned to some extent that once this perception begins to permeate the taxing agency, what tends to happen is that the focus comes on enforcing the tax loss in response to what, I think, is largely overestimated tax avoidance, and all the effort goes on enforcement in those areas.'

Vodafone has been at the centre of some of the biggest tax issues in terms of value in recent years. It is involved in a £2bn dispute with HM Revenue & Customs over a Luxembourg subsidiary created to facilitate the Mannesman merger in 2000, and faces a separate action in India too.

Tax issues are about integrity, Walters said: 'A corporation, and individual tax people, must feel that they are comfortable with the actions they have taken and the way they have gone about doing their business.'

WPP take view on UK tax system issue

Source: www.tax-news.com

As if Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling didn't have enough on his plate with the ongoing credit crunch, it has emerged that yet another FTSE100 firm is considering switching its corporate HQ abroad in protest at the UK's increasingly burdensome corporate tax regime.

Sir Martin Sorrel, head of WPP - the world's second largest advertising firm - told the BBC on Monday that if the Treasury introduced proposed rules to tax dividends earned by companies overseas in the UK, it could tip the balance in favour of relocating the firm's tax residence to a jurisdiction which does not tax such income, with Ireland likely to be top of the list.

"If the measures as is are introduced, ratified, confirmed and implemented, we will be taking a very serious look at the advantages and disadvantages [of moving its tax domicile and headquarters]," Sorrel was quoted as saying.

Sorrel's comments come hot on the heels of decisions by Shire Pharmaceuticals and United Business Media to set up holding companies in Jersey and relocate their corporate HQs to Ireland to cut their UK tax bills.

He went on to point out that WPP already pays a significant sum in tax to the Treasury each year - about GBP200mn (USD394mn) - and the proposed new rules could add tens of millions of pounds to the company's annual tax bill in the UK.

"We are talking about very very significant sums of money," he noted.