In-House Tax Blog

Men Accountants earn 60% more than Women

2010-03-05T09:30:00.003Z

Source: FinancialDirector.co.uk

Male accountants over 45 earn 60% more than female counterparts, study reveals

The pay-gap between male and female accountants over 45 has stretched to 60%, a new study has found.

The average basic salary for a male accountant over 45 is £98,400, while their female colleagues’ average is £60,500, according to a Career Benchmarking Study released by the ICAEW and recruiters Robert Half.

This difference increased in the past year, with women aged 46-55 seeing their wages drop by an average of 10% from last year’s figures, compared with just a 1% drop for males.

However, for younger accountants the difference is much smaller. Females under 30 receive an average wage of £47,300 (an increase of 3% from the previous year) while the average male salary is only 4% higher at £49,300 (a decrease of 5% from the previous year).

Michael Izza, chief executive of the ICAEW, said: “Our studies show that to attract and retain female talent, it is also vital to meet employee expectations regarding career progression and work-life balance.”

SG Comment: Whilst the above article provides quite revealing stats on male/female salaries, it doesn't attempt to explain why there appears to be a wide gulf between male/female salaries at equivalent grades, particulary for ages above 30. This should be incredibly obvious - a lot of women leave the market to have children, and then resume their careers later on. Of course, a women that has taken 3-5 years out of the market to have a family will be re-employed on a lower salary level than an equivalent man that has stayed in the market, that makes sense and is the case. Conversely, I think it is also the case that, in the majority of situations, women that don't have career breaks to have a family stay at the same salary levels as men, which again is not factored into the above study.

2010: Tax employment market, so far

2010-02-16T17:36:00.002Z

By Simon Godley

Coming into this year, I was quietly optimistic - I had a sense there was going to be more activity in the market, particularly compared to the deathly market of 2009. However, the market now seems broadly the same as the majority of last year. That said, I am writing this during half-term, and I think a lot of the market could be taking a deserved break with their children, hence not many calls being returned.

I have recently made the following observations:

* The interim tax / contract market is not good at all. Most contractors who have come to the end of a contract from late 2008 onwards to date have found it enormously difficult to find a new contract.

* The permanent market is very slow. It feels that the permanent market is slightly better than the interim market. However roles are generally appearing if a key member of the team is leaving, and the hiring manager can get the approval to replace, which in some cases is denied. Or if, by bringing a tax person in-house, will lead to a net cost reduction.

* Recruitment tends to be slightly more buoyant in very specialist areas of the market e.g. VAT / transfer pricing.

I guess generally the message is that the market is prepared to recruit for replacement for key people, but not yet at the stage of recruiting for growth. That could still be some time away.

Having said all that, the market does still 'feel' better than 2009, but not yet mended.

Thankfully saying Goodbye to 2009

2009-12-22T13:01:00.003Z

My expectations for 2009 as a year for recruiting were very low, and the year has very much met my expectations. It has been a very bleak year in the market, and of course the tax market has not escaped the pain.

Looking forward to 2010, I think conditions will remain difficult, but I suspect will be a slightly more free market as companies and business plan for their recovery, and hence recruit for the recovery. Any yes, tax rules and legislation continues to become more complex and onerous, and hence a need for astute tax professionals.

In the meantime, may I wish a wonderful (and white) Christmas, and a very peaceful New Year to all readers of this Blog, and indeed to all tax professionals.

FDs and the SAO regime

2009-12-01T14:18:00.003Z

Source: The Financial Director newsletter
Written by: Peter Williams

FDs are being lumbered with the senior accounting officer role but, oddly, they’re not protesting

UK finance directors are facing one of the biggest changes in compliance to hit their companies in decades. But you can’t hear so much as a collective tut. The introduction of the concept of a ‘senior accounting officer’ or SAO is more than a corporate imposition; it is a personal threat to each and every FD. So where are the voices raised in protest? So far, nowhere to be seen. And that’s astonishing.

As this issue barely seems to have hit the radar, FDs may need reminding why they should be up in arms. The 2009 Budget introduced requirements for the SAOs of large companies and groups to report to the taxman on the adequacy of their accounting systems for tax returns. And the real sit up-and-take notice bit? The SAO will be personally responsible for complying with these new requirements. And just to confirm the inevitable: a poll by PricewaterhouseCoopers indicates that more than 80% of companies are naming their FDs their SAO.

The SAO sign-off measure came into effect for financial years starting on or after the date of Royal Assent on 21 July 2009. At the moment, the regime only applies to companies or groups with turnover of more than £200m or gross assets of £2bn so big companies with a July year-end are already dealing with these requirements. The majority of companies with December year-ends have little time left to put their house in order. Under the rules, the SAO will have to provide annual assurance to HM Revenue & Customs that appropriate tax accounting policies and processes are in place and maintained.

The SAO regime is reminiscent of the US’s Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which also forced companies to focus attention on risk and processes. However, while Sarbox was greeted with howls of outrage and non-US companies threatening to quit the US to avoid falling under its regime, SAO has been meet with equanimity.

Perhaps the calm is due to HMRC saying it will apply a light touch in the first year of implementation. Even so, the SAO will still need to be able to demonstrate that their company is taking reasonable steps to review the appropriateness of the tax accounting arrangements in their business. Let’s put this in a wider context: as recession bit, government tax revenues collapsed. It desperately needs as much cash as it can lay its hands on, so squeezing big corporates looks like as good a source as any and the SOA legislation looks like an irresistible tool to make tax revenues flow.

Surprisingly, the PwC survey suggests that, among tax professionals, the SAO is seen in a relatively positive light, with one-third saying it provides an opportunity to drive improvements, such as reducing manual interventions. But then, the tax guys aren’t likely to be the SAO, so might be quite happy to see their FD boss squirming under the compliance spotlight.

The SAO regime covers different taxes and looks at the totality of processes and systems used to support tax compliance. The tax named as having the biggest risk was VAT, named by 54% of the survey, followed by corporation tax (22%) and PAYE (19%).

Tax is notoriously difficult to get completely right and the interface between it and the other part of a company’s financial systems is often held together with little more than a few tired spreadsheets. Even so, the message from UK plc is that the SAO sign-off will not be a major problem.

HMRC says it believes most groups are compliant but that there is a minority of large companies that need encouragement to up their game. The rationale as far as HMRC is concerned is that it wants senior management to take responsibility for systems and processes that can calculate and file accurate liabilities. It says there is an accountability gap in this area. Of particular concern to the taxman are those grey areas of the paypacket: expenses, benefits, short-term travel, secondees, entertaining, equity and termination. So as long as FDs can confirm everything is OK with those issues then my concerns are little more than journalistic hyperbole, even if the requirements are unlike anything seen in UK tax law, imposing personal duties and potential penalties on individual officers.

The only real positive that comes from this querulous piece of legislation is that tax may become a topic of more frequent discussion in the boardroom. And if that does happen, then it may act as a spur for companies to invest properly and substantially in their tax systems, bringing about, in many cases, long overdue transformation. Figures of spend of more than £50,000 seem to be the best guess for most companies, according to a Deloitte survey. But 10% think it will cost £250,000 or more to achieve compliance.

Maybe that figure needs to be set against the personal penalty for the SAO of £5,000 in relation to each failure of duty for each year. That bill will be covered by insurance: the cost to the FD’s personal reputation is not insurable.

Peter Williams is a chartered accountant and freelance journalist

SG comment: I thought this was a good article, which sums up the SAO regime situation so far, and also supporting evidence for large companies investing more heavily in tax technology systems over the next few years.

Thomson Reuters acquires Sabrix indirect tax technology

2009-11-29T15:03:00.002Z

Source: Thomson Reuters website

Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today (16th Nov) announced that its Tax & Accounting business has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Sabrix, Inc, a leading global provider of transaction tax management software applications and related services. Headquartered in San Ramon, CA, with additional operations in Oregon and London, all 160 Sabrix employees will transfer into Tax & Accounting upon the close of the transaction, which is expected in December 2009.

“This acquisition fulfills our vision of delivering a comprehensive global solution for corporations in the area of transaction tax, especially companies with a multinational presence” said Roy M. Martin, Jr., President and CEO of Tax & Accounting. “Sabrix offerings, which cover rates and rules for 170 countries, will be integrated with our existing local transaction tax software and services to form a total solution for corporate customers in the U.S., the U.K. and Europe.”

Transaction tax, also known around the world as indirect tax, VAT, GST or sales & use tax, trails only corporate and personal income taxes in its pervasiveness among country governments.

“Sabrix applications can process an unlimited number of transactions, control audit exposure, and reduce the total cost of sales tax, use tax, and VAT compliance,” said Brian Peccarelli, president of Corporate Software & Services for Tax & Accounting. “Additionally, the Sabrix Managed Tax Service™ offers finance departments of small-to-medium sized businesses an outsourced transaction tax compliance service.”

“We have collaborated with Thomson Reuters for years,” said Steve Adams, president and CEO of Sabrix. “We look forward to working alongside the well-known and respected brands of the Tax & Accounting business, including ONESOURCE and Checkpoint®, so that Sabrix clients can continue to achieve compliance with confidence in the most efficient and effective manner possible.”

SG comment: This acquisition follows Thomson Reuters taking over Digita and Abacus in the UK, and previously acquiring CrossBorder (transfer pricing software) in the US in 2007. This now makes Thomson Reuters the largest provider (by far) of tax software and technology in the UK.

Talentpool presents at the Tax Director Network

2009-11-06T12:28:00.007Z

On the evening of Wed 4th November 2009, Simon Godley made a presentation to the Tax Director Network on the subject of 'Attracting and Keeping Your Tax Team'. This was held at Norton Rose's offices, and was attended by a selection of commercial Tax Directors.

The Tax Director Network holds monthly meetings, and it is a very open and friendly forum for in-house Tax Directors to meet and discuss issues relating to the tax function, and for exchange of ideas and information.

I would certainly recommend this forum network to any Head of Tax / Tax Director who wishes to debate issues with like-minded professionals in a very relaxed and informal setting.

For more information, visit www.taxdirectornetwork.com

Talentpool - Poll on why people resign

2009-10-19T15:39:00.002+01:00

Talentpool is currently collecting data on why tax people resign from their job and move on from their employer, trying to get some real-time data as to what motivates people to leave a company or a job role.

To participate and contribute in this, please click through to the Poll set up on LinkedIn.

Thanks in advance.
Simon Godley

Deloitte's Abacus taken over by Thomson Reuters

2009-09-17T17:35:00.009+01:00

By Simon Godley

Some major news this week in the tax software market. Deloitte (where I trained in the Andersen days) has struck a deal with Thomson Reuters to sell the Abacus tax suite of software products to UK / American giant Thomson Reuters. I actually did find out about this on Friday night last week, but has taken me a while to blog it.

Thomson Reuters now have a major position in the UK tax software market, as they can offer products for CT compliance, PT compliance, tax accounting solutions, transfer pricing along with a workflow tax management product. That has been some serious acquisiton growth on the part of Thomson Reuters over the last 2 years.

For the full announcement from Thomson Reuters, click here.

Tax advisers brand HMRC's move to XBRL 'strange'

2009-07-20T12:14:00.002+01:00

Source: AccountancyAge.com

Tax experts have condemned the insistence from the taxman that corporate tax returns only be made in the future using the controversial computer language XBRL.

For accounting periods ending after 31 March 2010, corporate tax returns have to be submitted using XBRL, a language that tags financial data and allows comparability. The majority of corporate tax accounts are currently filed using Microsoft Word or Excel.

But tax advisers have described the decision to adopt XBRL as both ‘strange’ and placing an ‘unwanted overhead’ on small business.

Tony Spillett, tax partner at BDO Stoy Hayward, estimated the cost of implementing XBRL could be ‘tens of thousands of pounds’ per firm.

‘There’s potentially a lot of work to be done. There’s a lot of red tape and additional burden on business so that HMRC can make life easier for themselves. It’s a real unwanted overhead,’ he said.

He added the long-term shift away from paper filing was welcome, however ‘it’s the devil in the detail and the way the HMRC has used the opportunity to capture the data in XBRL form [that] is concerning’.

According to Kevin Salter, technology partner at Glover Stanbury & Co, the decision by HMRC to adopt XBRL as the required format is strange given so few firms currently use the system.

‘We have no choice. I don’t know what their rationale for going down that route is. Various representations have been made by accountancy bodies but they’ve chosen to go their own way,’ he said.

Salter said a contracted software house will implement the necessary change on behalf of the firm but expects support fees for the service to rise as a result of the new requirement.

Tax advisers believe the change to XBRL will mean HMRC has the capacity to mine data more effectively and could lead to an increase in the number of tax enquiries.

A spokeswoman for HMRC confirmed that if a return is not filed in the new format, it will be ‘disregarded’ and treated as not having been delivered.

She said HMRC has consulted with the profession over the change and is continuing to engage with the software industry.

SG comment: There are quite clearly some financial winners and losers within these proposed submission changes. The losers are the companies that have to adopt these changes, the costs of changing their systems, the penalties for getting it wrong, and knock-on defence work with HMRC from the numbers being 'tagged'. The winners will most likely be the Big 4 and practice from increased advisory and implementation fees, and the software houses from selling their accounting / tax systems to industry. It will be very interesting to see how this all gets rolled out over the next couple of years.

KPMG signs tax software deal with Digita

2009-07-17T12:39:00.001+01:00

Source: AccountancyAge.com

Big Four firm KPMG has signed a six-figure deal with Digita to supply their personal tax software over the next five years.

KPMG are estimated to be paying more than £800,000 over five years to Digita, part of Thomson Reuters, to provide personal tax software as HMRC moves to mandatory online filing of returns.

Digita was narrowed down from a shortlist of three and secured the contract last year, with the firm previously supplied by CCH for personal tax technology.

KPMG declined to comment as they have a policy of not commenting on third party suppliers.

Digita also supplies software to Smith & Williamson as well as Baker Tilly. KPMG began implementing the new software in April last year with the firm waiting until it was embedded before making the announcement.

CCH recently signed a deal with Deloitte to supply their personal tax software, but have not responded as to when that deal was struck.

Banking code of practice - impact on front office tax teams?

2009-07-03T14:50:00.004+01:00

The U.K. government will step up its anti-tax avoidance fight Monday, with the treasury announcing plans to ask banks to sign a code of good practice, a person familiar with the matter said Friday.

The person said the treasury will publish a consultation document Monday which will urge banks to be more transparent about their tax affairs.

The voluntary code, first mentioned in the budget in April, will encourage them to enter discussions with the U.K.'s revenue and customs agency about how to comply with the spirit of tax laws.

Banks will have 12 weeks to respond to the consultation but the government is confident most major institutions will sign up, the person said. It's thought there have already been talks on the code between the treasury and leading financial institutions.

The code of practice will build on a similar mechanism that HMRC has used to minimize tax avoidance from leading U.K. businesses.

The idea is to open a grown-up dialogue where banks can privately share information about their tax arrangements with HMRC, consulting with officials on what is acceptable and what HMRC considers inappropriate. A senior bank official - preferably a board member - will be asked to sign up to the code, the person said.

But if banks don't sign up to the code - or sign but don't improve their behavior - HMRC could adopt a more intrusive approach. The treasury isn't ruling out moving beyond a voluntary code if that approach fails to change banks' behavior.

"A voluntary code based on an open and upfront dialogue is likely to yield a more genuine behavioral change," the person said.

The move comes as the U.K. battles an economic recession that has taken large bites out of government revenue and bloated the budget deficit to record peacetime levels. The deficit will be above 12% of gross domestic product this year, with public sector net borrowing set to reach £175 billion.

In a bid to plug the fiscal gap, the treasury has become more aggressive in a number of areas, leading international efforts to press tax havens to be more open and seeking to tighten the rules for so-called non-doms, people who reside in the U.K. but are not domiciled here.

There are no exact estimates of how much the government hopes to save through the new code.

The disclosure regime introduced in 2004 requires avoidance scheme users and promoters to disclose details to HMRC. Since the introduction of this regime, HMRC has acted on information received to protect over £11 billion.

Tax Technology advice for large companies

2009-06-27T12:02:00.004+01:00

There is a very good summary article that I noticed on the current situation on tax technology as it is affecting large businesses, now and in the future. It has been written for AccountancyAge.com by Michelle Quest and Bivek Sharma, both Tax Partners at KPMG.

This article is applicable to all UK Heads of Tax and CFOs. Read it by clicking here

More Big 4 tax appointments from in-house market

2009-06-26T12:58:00.003+01:00

Source: Tax Careers

There are new faces in KPMG's tax practice following the appointment of Angus Wilson and Darren Mellor-Clark as Tax Partners.

Wilson, former European Head of Tax and acting European CFO at Babcock & Brown, joins the firm's infrastructure tax group.

Mellor-Clark, who was global lead for VAT and Sales taxes at UBS, joins KPMG's financial services practice as an Associate Partner.

Caitriona Hunt, joint head of corporate tax and head of the business services tax practice at KPMG in the UK, said: "These are important, strategic hires to our business. Our practice is enjoying strong growth in key areas, and these appointments will significantly enhance our capabilities in these parts of the tax practice"

SG comment: Within the last 12 months, there has been a spate of senior in-house tax professionals, particularly from banks, making the move to London Big 4 firms at Partner level. Whilst this makes good sense for the tax execs making this sort of career move, I find it quite surprising that the Big 4 have brought so many new Tax Partners given the general business and economic environment. Of course, bringing in senior tax expertise from industry / banking can be very valuable to the Big 4 practice, in that it immediately increases their client network in a particular sector (eg VAT / Funds), and the individuals themselves bring extremely valuable experience from the buyers perspective ie buyer of tax services. The downside, however, is that I sense the (new) Tax Partners coming in have got the enormous task of bringing in high tax fees from what is now a much smaller and increasingly fiercely competitive market. Very strong selling skills I imagine will be the order of the day.

KPMG makes further cuts in UK tax practice

2009-06-10T13:58:00.003+01:00

Source: AccountancyAge.com

KPMG plans to cut jobs in its UK tax department in response to the recession and a slump in demand for merger and acquisition-related tax advice.

The UK’s third biggest accounting firm emailed UK staff today to tell them that it needs to cut jobs in its tax and people services department in the UK.

In an email to staff Richard Bennison, chief operating officer at KPMG, told staff it needed to cut the jobs in response to a changing market for tax services.

An industry source said that a couple of hundred jobs could be cut. A spokesman for KPMG confirmed that the firm planned to cut jobs in its UK tax practice, but declined to give a likely figure for job cuts. He said that it was still consulting staff.

Earlier this year, KPMG offered UK staff the chance to do a four-day working week, or take extended unpaid leave, in an effort to avoid redundancies if the economy deteriorated further.

The accountancy profession has been hit by a wave of redundancies over the past year. Firms including Deloitte, Grant Thornton and PKF have announced plans to cut hundreds of jobs in expectation of slower revenue growth this year.

Thousands of redundancies in financial services have cut the amount of advisory work on offer, while merger and acquisition activity has also slowed dramatically.

SG Comment: This appears to be the next phase, effectively 2nd round of heavy cost cutting, from one of the Big 4 firm's tax function. Although in the case of KPMG, their clever tactic was to lose cost and not people in their first round of cuts, by putting people into 4 days per week contracts. From my initial warning note Credit Crunch - Impact on Tax Jobs in Sept 2007, we have now seen a few waves of job cuts in the tax market, the first round with the Big 4 taking place in December 2008. There have been whole teams of tax structuring people (not in-house tax) cut from some of the investment banks, and in-house tax teams across industry / commerce have generally had to make some reductions, although quite small, on average shaving c.5-10% of staff from a tax team. This is a generalism as I think a lot of in-house tax teams have remained the same size, as I predicted back in September 2007. My estimation is that we are now approx 12-15 months away from companies being able to recruit more freely for growth, although I suspect it could take longer as I think that these 'green shoots' that I keep hearing about could be quite classic false dawn.

Two Tax Software businesses merge

2009-05-29T17:56:00.003+01:00

Source: AccountancyAge

UK Taxworld and Informanagement, which both provide information and software on tax, compliance and governance changes to accountancy practice clients, have merged to create the fourth largest player in the market.

It will now compete directly with CCH, the biggest supplier of tax software and information in the UK. The merged business will now have a combined client database of up to 500 UK firms.

Laurence Vogel, head of UK operations at Informanagement, said: ‘We see ourselves benchmarked against CCH rather than other competitors.

Is there potential for other mergers in the pipeline, who knows? We just want to drive the business forward.’

Informanagement is a Dutch company created by three accountants in 2001 which currently supplies to 10% of the Dutch market. It launched in the UK last year and will act as the parent company to UK Taxworld.

Informanagement has said there are no redundancy plans. It will consolidate customer service centres but both company’s will retain their names, though Informanagement will add ‘incorporating UK Taxworld’. The change will be reflected on their website later this month.

Prior to the merger Informanagement would have sat towards the bottom of the top ten players in the industry, with UK Taxworld sitting in the middle.

CCH were unavailable for comment at time of going to press.

Tax Technology Forum - 29th April 2009 at the IoD - Review

2009-05-02T10:22:00.004+01:00

The first Tax Technology Forum, hosted by Talentpool Selection, was held at the Institute of Directors on Wednesday evening this week.

Following initial welcome drinks and opportunity for networking / reacquainting with ex-colleagues, the event got straight into the discussion on current issues and challenges faced in tax technology, and what we could expect in the future.

There was a panel of six experts, highly experienced in the field of tax technology and accounting systems, answering questions and queries from a room of 35 tax and/or tax technology professionals.

The panel was:

Andrew Wrentmore – ONESource Tax Provision, Thomson Reuters

Alan James – European Director, Vertex Global Tax Solutions

Graham Tilbury – Independent Tax Technology Consultant

Michael Camburn – Managing Director, Ryan & Company

Ilana Rinkoff – Director of Tax Risk Management Network

Gareth Scanlon – EMEIA Tax Performance Advisory Group, Ernst & Young

Questions raised included:

• My organisation is about to embark on a major finance transformation. We are looking to implement a standardised ERP system with a view to achieving tax automation. What have other companies done on this? We are looking for creative / visionary ideas which are currently being employed in the market.

• Under proposals introduced in the Budget, the Senior Accounting Officer will now be personally accountable for certifying that they have adequate accounting systems in place to ensure the accuracy of their tax computations or face penalties of up to £5,000 plus loss of reputation and Company fines:
- What is meant by 'accounting systems' – would this naturally include the tax technology/IT system?

• What type / size of organisation benefit most from employing an indirect tax solution?

• What are the expectations / predictions for the future in terms of how tax / VAT / PAYE technology will look? Are companies looking to automate tax to the extent they will be operating with a ‘touch of a button’ solution?

• I work in tax with a UK group. From a risk management perspective, what do you advise re filing of our documents / correspondence. What e-filing systems are available?

Quite thorough and well thought out answers were given from a combination of the panel experts. The Senior Accounting Officer personally accountable question was heavily debated, with some conflicting views on what we could expect from HMRC on this. This questions could have potentially filled the whole hour of discussion, rather than the 20 mins it was granted. This really does sound like it will be a major minefield for FDs / CFOs of large companies when the rules kick in, and it was likened to the whole Sarbanes-Oxley regime that came in a few years ago.

The question about the future outlook of tax technology and could we see a 'push of a button' solution was healthily debated between the panelists and the attendees, with the general consensus that this is slightly in the realms of Sci-fi rather than practical realism, and that international businesses are so complex than human input can not yet be replaced by clever machines.

Initial feedback from the event has been very positive:

"Thank you Simon for organizing the event, the event also clearly marked that even with the technology today and virtual communication, people like to discuss and share information verbally and face to face, thanks from Holland"

"A great evening Simon. Many thanks for organizing the event. I made a number of new friends and reconnected with some old ones too. Budget Note 62 seemed a big topic, and one that didn't fit into the time our session allowed, so I'm expecting to see plenty of debate here over the coming days once the Draft Finance Bill has been published and digested."

"Thanks for the opportunity to present; it was very worthwhile from my perspective and actually I have had quite some interest from people looking to “link-in” on LinkedIn which is great testament to such a networking event."

FDs / CFOs - are your tax controls adequate?

2009-04-26T21:03:00.003+01:00

The Government announced a number of measures in this week's budget to ensure that businesses and individuals pay the right amount of tax and reduce the opportunity for evasion, avoidance or non-compliance. The clauses which I suspect will be mostly of interest to readers of this blog are:

- it will legislate for the publication by HMRC of the names of both corporate
and individual taxpayers who incur a penalty because they have deliberately
understated more than £25,000 of tax;

- it will establish a statutory requirement for senior accounting officers of major corporates to certify personally that adequate controls to prepare accurate tax computations are in place;

- HMRC will require those who have incurred a penalty for deliberate
understatement of over £5,000 of tax to provide more information about
their tax affairs for up to five years to ensure they have proper systems to be
able to make a correct tax return; and

- HMRC will shortly issue a draft code of practice on taxation for the banking
sector, along with a consultation document.

This will be quite a significant issue for in-house tax functions, and clearly means that the FD / CFO of a business has a personal motivation for shining a torch over the systems and controls that are in place to ensure that the tax computations process is solid, thereby delivering accurate CT returns to HMRC.

This may lead to companies upgrading and investing in better tax technology solutions to put in place greater automation over the tax computations process, thereby increasing accuracy and reducing risk of error through possible out-of-date spreadsheet methods.

This new budget development will certainly be a topic debated at Talentpool's forthcoming Tax Technology discussion evening, to be held at the IoD on 29th April.

Top 10 firm senior tax guys appointed to top level banking positions

2009-04-19T14:10:00.004+01:00

Rob Withecombe has been appointed as head of wealth advisory at Barclays Wealth. He joins the London office from Grant Thornton where he was a partner, head of tax and a member of the firm’s operational board. Withecombe joined Grant Thornton in 1996 and was the tax partner in a regional office until 2002. With over 20 years’ experience he has also worked for KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Kleinwort Benson has also appointed Jeremy Croysdill as head of tax services. His career began at Ernst & Whinney in the personal tax group, transferring to the private client services of Ernst & Young on its merger with Arthur Young. He joined Stoy Hayward in 1990 where he dealt with high net worth individuals providing them with compliance and planning initiatives, trust work and IHT advice. He joined Kleinwort Benson in 2005, most recently as part of the product advisory team.

Banking tax specialists move to E&Y as Tax Partners

2009-03-27T14:23:00.002Z

Stephen Hoyle and Andrew Martel have been appointed partners at Ernst & Young’s tax practice and will be based in E&Y’s EMEIA financial services office in London.

Hoyle joins from Deutsche Bank AG where he was managing director in the bank’s
structured capital markets division. He trained and qualified as a lawyer with
Nabarro Nathanson in London and then moved to Freshfields where he became a
tax partner.

Martel joins E&Y from asset management group CQS, where he was head of tax and prior to this he was a partner at Deloitte.

Tax Software Company does deal with Equifax

2009-03-27T13:13:00.003Z

Source: AccountancyAge.com

Acorah Software Products, the suppliers of tax software, has signed a deal with credit checkers Equifax to help accountants comply with anti-money laundering verifications.

Acorah has released TaxCalc AML Search and Verify Service which allows accountants to access Equifax's database looking up, existence checks and proof of identity.

Tracy Ebdon-Poole, CEO of TaxCalc.com said, 'the depth and accuracy of this data provides our customers with a detailed and reliable verification of the individual.'

'Further anti-money laundering products will be available in the coming months and we will be offering all customers of TaxCalc AML Search and Verify a refund of their initial registration fee when they buy these additional programmes' she added.

The company spent three months developing the software, which costs approximately £1.50 per search, with Equifax expressing an interest in entering the anti-money laundering verification space.

Firms are able to cross reference date all information found on the electoral roll, CCJ records as well as receive alerts from Royal Mail redirections and the Bank of England sanctions list.

Talentpool hosts Tax Technology Evening - 29th April 2009

2009-03-20T18:45:00.004Z

Talentpool is sponsoring and hosting an inaugural social event for tax technology specialists, to be held at the London IoD in the evening of Wednesday 29th April.

Adopting a Question Time type format, it will be an opportunity for tax technology professionals to pose questions to a panel of experts on current issues affecting the sector, and what to expect of tax technology in the future.

This event will be very informative for those at an experienced level within the tax technology sphere, and large company Heads of Tax.

Interested parties who would like to attend should contact Simon Godley on 07771 762353 or e-mail: sg@talentpoolselection.com

There are limited spaces available.

Banking VAT guys move (back) to E&Y

2009-02-24T06:04:00.003Z

Source: Tax Careers Magazine

E&Y has recently recruited two senior financial services VAT experts to take lead roles in its banking VAT team.

Mitchell Moss has joined as a Partner from law firm Dorsey & Whitney, where he worked in tax litigation.

Also, Andrew Bailey has joined as a Director from Lehman Brothers, where he was global head of VAT.

Both previously worked at E&Y. Andrew Bailey was there between 1996 and 1999, before moving on to KPMG. He was at KPMG for 5-6 years, operating as a Senior Manager in the FS VAT team before being appointed into the Lehman role.

Digita clinches Smith & Williamson for tax software

2009-02-06T11:35:00.002Z

Source: AccountancyAge.com

Smith & Williamson has moved to Digita for its tax software, replacing current supplier CCH.

The firm moved from CCH, the accountancy IT provider that is part of Wolters Kluwer, to Digita Personal Tax.

Lee Drewett, senior national tax manager at Smith & Williamson, said: 'Having the best tax software and best customer service is essential for our tax practice to ensure that we continue to provide the very best taxation service to all our clients whether they be individuals, trusts or businesses.'

Digita is backed by Thomson Reuters and is part of the Sweet & Maxwell division that produces legal and publishing material. Digita also supplies software to Baker Tilly, RSM Bentley Jennison and Haines Watts.

SG comment: I suspect this is a significant win for Digita, now part of the Thomson Reuters empire. Thomson Reuters seem to be making good progress in the UK on the tax software front, having acquired both CrossBorder Solutions (Transfer Pricing software) and Digita (personal, business and trusts tax software) within the last 18 months.

Happy New Year...but not a happy tax market

2009-01-16T17:41:00.004Z

By Simon Godley

Returning into this New Year (2009), we are seeing what was completed expected - a pretty dead recruitment market. On speaking to a number of Heads of Tax across commerce & industry, there is next to zero appetite to recruit additional tax staff. This is largely because the vast majority of commercial organisations have a recruitment freeze, thereby making it impossible to approve any recruitment. In some cases, if the size of an in-house tax team reduced last year due to people moving on, it is proving difficult to justify replacing them.

That said, the employment market seems to be reacting to the economic conditions as one would expect. We are now in full blown recession, which will possibly take another 7-12 months to run its course to completion, however the employment market will take a while longer to recover as hiring fresh people into a business won't happen until chief execs and business heads feel confident again about the business growth plans. This could be another 12 months beyond the end of the recession.

One positive is that although the Big Four firms have made some staff cuts (including tax professionals), these staff reductions have been relatively small compared to the total sizes of their tax departments. Then again, there may be more staff reductions during 2009, let's see how the market progresses.

Tax Market - Reflecting on 2008

2008-12-19T11:00:00.002Z

By Simon Godley

Firstly, I would like to wish all readers of this tax blog and all professionals within the in-house tax market a very good Christmas and happy and peaceful New Year.

This has been the year in which the credit crunch problem has finally crystallised and has hit all the markets very hard - the stock market, the general economy and more recently the employment market.

My first blog posting about how the credit crunch might affect in-house tax jobs was in September 2007, prompted by the major banks going on recruitment freezes. At that time, the market didn't feel too good, but we could not predict the financial tsunami that hit us 3 months ago. These hiring freezes didn't stay on during the first half of 2008, but since October / November, it's not just the banks which are on hiring freezes, but the majority of the UK commerce/industry market.

This is going to take a long while to untangle, but I intend to update this blog on the state of the tax job market during 2009, and hopefully this time next year things won't look quite so bleak.

Simon Godley