Talentpool presents at the Tax Director Network

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

WPP confirms tax led relocation to Ireland

Source: AccountancyAge.com

WPP, the world's second-biggest advertising and marketing group, has confirmed it plans to move its official headquarters from Britain to Ireland because of punitive changes to the British tax regime.

A WPP spokesman told Reuters on Sunday the advertising giant was likely to issue a stock exchange announcement this week on its plans to change domicile.

The decision to move offshore will be a huge blow for the Treasury, particularly as Martin Sorrell, WPP chief executive, has acted as an ambassador for British business.

WPP, who paid ₤204m in UK taxes last year and conducts almost 90% of its business outside Britain, estimates the tax regime changes would add tens of millions to its British tax bill.

SG comment: This is quite a big deal for the Treasury as WPP do have such a high profile reputation in global marketing and advertising, and was worthy of a mention by David Cameron in his Conservative party conference speech today.

High flying ex-Head of Tax joins FTSE 100 board

3i Group plc has announced that Julia Wilson, the group’s deputy finance director will join the board on 1st October 2008 as Finance Director designate. She will succeed Simon Ball, who has decided to resign as finance director, and he steps down from the board with effect from 30th November 2008. Wilson joined 3i in January 2006 as deputy finance director, with responsibility for the group’s finance, taxation and treasury functions. She was previously group director of corporate finance at Cable & Wireless, which she joined in 2000. She originally trained as an ACA in corporate tax with Arthur Andersen in London in the early-90s.

Read the full announcement on the 3i website

Tesco faces new tax questions - but why?

Source: AccountancyAge.com

Tesco is facing new allegations that it set up complex structures to avoid corporation tax.

The magazine Private Eye last week published claims that Tesco had set up a financing arm in the Swiss canton of Zug.

The arm helps finance the supermarket's international business. Tax is paid on the interest on the loans it provides at a lower rate in Zug than it would be in the UK, saving Tesco £16m, the magazine said.

Tesco was quoted saying: 'This partnership is used to fund our overseas business. It is common practice for global businesses operating in other markets to fund development in similar ways. We have an open relationship with HMRC and discuss our tax arrangements and planning with them on an ongoing basis. We believe this structure is compliant with the government's controlled foreign companies legislation.'

Tesco is suing The Guardian over reports in that paper that it had avoided up to £1bn in corporation tax through a Cayman Islands structure.

SG comment: I think it very unwise for high profile publications to make allegations about Tesco's tax position. Let's look at the facts - Tesco is a multi-billion and now very international business - because of this, it employs some very bright in-house tax professionals to devise overseas structures that will mitigate the group's tax liability, all of which has to be agreed with UK HMRC. Everyone's a winner - the UK is a winner for having a fantastic and entrepreneurial employer. At the end of the day, Tesco is a commercial enterprise that will look to increase shareholder value, it is not set up to donate corporate tax to the UK treasury. The UK treasury should be thinking of ways to simplify the UK tax rules for companies, thereby stopping them from considering relocating their tax residency elsewhere. I think the Guardian are now paying the price for trying (and failing) to understand Tesco's tax position.

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.

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.

UBM follows Shire's tax move to Ireland

Various tax news websites are reporting today that United Business Media (UBM) is doing the same as Shire Pharmaceuticals, incorporating in Jersey and being tax resident in Ireland, with a FTSE listing. Although some camps are calling this blatant tax avoidance, I don't blame them if it is not clear how foreign profits are taxed in the UK, particularly if 85% of your profits are outside the UK. I don't think UBM will be the last FTSE group to announce this type of restructure.

Click here for the full announcement.

Shire Holding relocation - more tax insight

Further to my article last week about Shire changing its residency to Ireland from the UK, an article from www.tax-news.com sheds a little more light on the tax background to the decision. The article also mentions that c.200 companies have relocated their HQ in the last 10 years, which seems a lot more than I thought. I suspect that this number includes US parent groups that have moved their European HQ from the UK to somewhere in Europe, and not purely UK listed groups.

To read the full article, click here

FTSE 100 Shire relocates to Ireland for tax purposes

Source: AccountancyAge.com

The Confederation of British Industry has raised concerns about the UK's anti-competitive tax regime after Shire announced it would relocate to Ireland where tax rules are more favourable for business.

Richard Lambert, CBI Director-General, said: 'We are particularly worried that an uncompetitive corporate tax system is spoiling the UK's attractiveness as a place to do business, and that other internationally-mobile firms will follow Shire's path.'

FTSE 100-listed Shire, the third-largest pharmaceutical firm in the UK, is set to pay significantly less tax by becoming a tax resident in Ireland.

The company re-assured market concerns over the change of residency, saying the change would not affect Shire's UK operations or workforce. But this will mean a loss of income for the Treasury, the Telegraph reported.

A company statement said: 'Shire has concluded that its business and its shareholders would be better served by having an international holding company with a group structure that is designed to help protect the group's taxation position, and better facilitate the group's financial management.'

SG comment: I can't think of any other FTSE listed group to announce this sort of change of residency for tax purposes, it will be interesting to see if any other UK groups follow suit.

BP uses internal tax faculty as recruitment tool

I only became aware recently that BP had set up an internal tax faculty to help with both attracting new talent into their tax team, and for longer term retention of people. The BP tax team is very large, with something like 150 in-house tax staff, so I guess having a dedicated tax faulty within the company can be easily justified.

Their Corporate Tax Director, John Bartlett, initiated this 2 years ago. Like most large corporates, they were struggling to recruit high calibre tax professionals from the external market. "The tax recruitment market had evolved and we could no longer rely on the professional firms and Revenues releasing a stream of talented individuals into industry," Bartlett said.

The tax faculty is based within BP's already established virtual university. Here tax professionals can develop their skills from classroom-based courses, self-led modules and on-the-job training.

"The financial reward package is always important but in an increasingly transparent market, it can be a given with candidates already knowing the salaries that are generally available," Bartlett says. "Now candidates want to know where the job might lead, the variety of progression opportunities and what track record the company can demonstrate of realising them for its people."

BP's programme offers career development frameworks that will seek to motivate and develop a tax professional comparable to that of practice Bartlett explains.

To date, the programme has been a roaring success, one that Bartlett describes as 'very powerful' in attracting and retaining tax staff all over the world especially lesser known tax networks including Russia, Vietnam, Korea, Azerbaijan and Indonesia.

From past experience, I know that BP have never really had a problem with retaining tax staff. Because of the massive size and scale of the global group, they have been able to offer tax professionals a career progression plan, including secondments to other parts of finance and overseas placements, which is always an effective retention tool. However BP's method is easy to replicate and other multinationals such as Shell and GE have also established their own tailored versions.

The above quotes come from the article "The tax talent pool is diminishing" by Jo Faith in the April 2008 issue of International Tax Review (www.internationaltaxreview.com)

Authorities challenge Glaxo's tax positions

Source: International Tax Review

GlaxoSmithKline, the pharmaceuticals company, is fighting two significant international tax battles with the authorities in the US and the UK. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is claiming $680 million in back taxes and interest over an intra-company financing assessment. The company reported in its annual results for 2007 that it is also in dispute with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) over transfer pricing issues.

The latest disputes with the tax authorities follow the settlement of a long-running transfer pricing dispute where – for an extended period – the IRS and HMRC could not agree on an outcome. The IRS would not accept that HMRC was the competent authority, which would have given British officials the right to be the ultimate arbiter on the issue.

The IRS is challenging deductions arising from intra-company financing arrangements for the years 2001 to 2003. GSK says it will vigorously contest the US tax authority's position.

"The issue relates to interest on intra-company financing that was taken as a deduction on the US income tax return," a GSK spokesman told International Tax Review. "We believe, supported by external professional advice, that this claim has no merit and that no adjustment is warranted. We strictly adhered to the IRS rules regarding intra-company debt and we feel very confident in our position based, in part, on external professional advice that we have received.

"Since this will potentially be a matter of litigation and we are still in ongoing discussions with the IRS, it would be inappropriate for us to discuss any more details at this time," the spokesman added.

The company said if it could not reach a settlement with the IRS, it did not expect the case to go to court before 2010. It would not comment on whether the issue of competent authority could emerge again in this matter.

At the same time, the company remains in dispute with HMRC over transfer pricing. "The dispute with HMRC is not on the same issue. We continue to be in dispute with HMRC primarily in respect of transfer pricing and controlled foreign companies (CFCs) matters for the years 1994 to date," the company spokesman said.

"HMRC has not yet formalised claims in respect of these matters and we are seeking to resolve them in discussions with HMRC. There continues however to be a wide difference between the group and HMRC positions, which may ultimately need to be settled by litigation," he added.

HMRC and the IRS declined to comment for this story.

In September 2006, GSK settled with the IRS in what was then the largest transfer pricing case in the US. The company paid the tax authority $3.4 billion in relation to various transfer pricing issues from 1989 to 2005.

State of the tax job market?.......and let's be honest!

By Simon Godley

I've just read an article in one of the tax magazines (in a supplement focused on careers) whereby a number of recruiters are asked for their views on the state of the current tax market. The difficulty with such articles is that I'm not sure we are hearing the absolute true facts of what's happening, but merely a collage of comments filled with quite a lot of spin, that merely act as a sort of announcement advert for each of the recruiters' businesses.

For example, when one recruiter was asked about the Big Four firms, the comment was that most of the top 20 firms (let's assume that includes the Big Four) are set to increase head count. The fact is that currently two of the Big Four in London have pretty much put a complete hold on recruiting tax people.

Also, I think to play down what is happening in the London banking sector is not right - I have just come back from a meeting where I have learnt that 40 jobs of c.200 staff in the London office of a bank have just been slashed in the last 2 weeks.

On the subject of what's happening in commerce, one comment is that there is a demand for tax people within the FTSE 100 to grow their team. Again, I don't think this is the case. If you look at the size of a typical FTSE 100 tax department over a 10 year period, unless there has been a major structural change with the company e.g. it has been taken over, or has merged with another group, then the size of the tax department will hardly change. In-house tax departments don't grow in the same respect than, for example, a Big Four middle markets tax team may look to grow. Within a corporate, there is a fairly well defined remit of work that needs to be done, and that work will require a fairly fixed number of tax professionals to do it.

Basically when the broader enonomy has been hit with fears, and we have been recently - Northern Rock, sub-prime lending, rogue traders at Soc Gen to name a few, then the tax job market is not immediately or majorly affected. It is someway down the hit list of areas that are affected, however if this starts to have a major impact on organisations' profitability (particularly the likes of the Big Four) then I'm afraid that no-one is safe.

Tax Jobs - Weekly Highlights

This week, I'm just highlighting a couple of UK PLC Tax Manager roles which are currently active, and absolute classic first move roles for Tax Assistant Managers / Tax Managers within the Big Four / Top 10 firms, having completed their ACA/CTA training contracts. The market is still very short on that sort of candidate profile, the Big Four remaining to do quite well to retain their tax staff.

Tax Manager - FTSE 250 Group (Northern Home Counties)
£55,000 - £70,000 + Car + Bens
See More Details

Tax Manager - FTSE 100 Banking Group (London)
£50,000 - £60,000 + Bonus + Bens
See More Details

Tax Jobs - Weekly Highlights

It's early January 2008, and typically a time of year when a number of new tax opportunities emerge in the market. Below are a couple of interesting ones that I have picked up:

Senior International Tax Manager (maternity cover) - FTSE 100 Group, London
£Flexible hourly rate
See more details


Transfer Pricing Manager - Large Bank, London
£50,000 - £80,000
See more details


I suspect that the demand for transfer pricing specialists will continue during 2008 as it does seem to be a major issue for both Heads of Tax and finance execs within business to get their heads around.

BP settles tax in Alaska

Source: Financial Times

BP has agreed to pay Alaska $379m (£191m) to settle a dispute over its corporate income tax liabilities for 2000-02, the US state's governor announced late on New Year's Eve.

Sarah Palin said BP, Europe's second largest oil company, had agreed on December 31 to pay the money. The funds would be deposited in the constitutional budget reserve, the state's main savings account.

The terms and conditions of the dispute and agreement must be kept confidential by law, she added. "I am very pleased with this settlement and appreciate BP's willingness to work with the state of Alaska and come to a fair resolution."

BP confirmed the details of the settlement and said it was glad the matter was resolved.

The payment, on behalf of the BP Exploration (Alaska) subsidiary, is the latest blow to BP which is still under investigation by state officials for last year's oil spill in Prudhoe Bay for which the company has already paid $20m in fines.

Just before Christmas, Ms Palin signed into law a proposed tax increase on the oil industry, boosting the rate from 22.5 per cent to 25 per cent of the net value of oil.

The increase, which is expected to raise the industry's tax bill by $1.5bn next year, led BP to say it was reviewing its investment plans in Alaska.

Doug Suttles, president of BP Exploration (Alaska), said he was disappointed by the tax hike. "This will impact our business plans in 2008."

On December 26, an Alaska superior court judge ruled that BP, ExxonMobil and other oil companies could have their leases for Point Thomson, a gas and condensate field, revoked by the state because they had taken too long to develop it.

The ruling was welcomed by Ms Palin.

What makes a top flight Group Tax Director?

By Simon Godley

The latest issue of Tax Careers magazine (December 2007) features a profile of Joel Walters, Group Tax Director of Vodafone. It's an interesting article as it interviews Joel, and outlines how he got to where he is now ie Global Head of Tax for one of the world's largest and highest profile companies.

What is mostly interesting, and the theme that underpins the article, is that he has not micro-managed his career through setting of targets and goals each year etc, rather when he has seen opportunities in front of him, he has seized them. For example, in 1986, he decided to shift across to a tax role in an accountancy firm from a law firm, and then shortly after move to a firm in Washington DC, just when the last major re-write of tax law was being released. He focused and mastered these new rules, and found ways of doing tax planning around them.

Later on in his career, he stepped out of tax a couple of times to work in two start-up companies. Here, he picked up very valuable commercial experience of getting a small business off the ground, and then translated and used this experience when he returned to tax. His quote being 'Great tax people are those who also have business experience. Just being a tax expert alone will not make you a great business partner within a business'.

I think there are two key drivers to be possibly learnt from this article - one is about taking risk, and the other is about how hard you work. Joel Walters has benefited in a very harmonious way from both areas - he has been prepared to take a risk in his career, and for this he has been rewarded. When he has then found himself in an interesting role, he has worked very hard at it, and as a result has got ahead of the game.

Some people take risks, and they don't work out, and so some may say that Joel has been lucky in his career. But I think, and I'm possibly quoting a famous successful person here, that the harder you work, the luckier you become.

BHP Billiton faces back taxes bill

Source: International Tax Review

BHP Billiton has been hit with a $643 million bill for Australian tax arrears for the 2000 to 2006 tax years

The natural resources company said the demand is made up of $336 million in tax and $307 million in interest and penalties, and concerns the capital allowances the group claimed in relation to Boodarie Iron (Australia), a subsidiary that closed down in August 2005. BHP said it is entitled to the relief and intended to contest the Australia Taxation Office's opinion.

SG comment: There is a more detailed statement of this on the Australian BHP Billiton website within the Investors and Media section.

Tax technology gathers pace.........by Simon Godley

As IT innovation keeps developing, we find that computer technology becomes a more integral part of the tax process. In fact, it seems that companies are gradually adjusting to having most of the tax compliance process highly automated, with bespoke ERP systems collecting the relevant tax numbers from financial accounts, and throwing them into a tax return. For large multinationals with complex business operations, the use of tax systems can remove large chunks of man-hours from the year-end compliance work. This effect is also now feeding into the VAT / indirect tax arena, where a small number of tech-savvy VAT specialists are developing products to automate the VAT process for large business.

Whilst in the long run this could be bad news for tax accountants as their work load decreases, Talentpool is currently finding an increasing demand for tax professionals to actually switch into the area of tax technology.

The current tax technology market is broadly serviced by 2 types of organisation. There are teams in the Big 4 firms that advise multinationals on their tax technology requirements. Then we have the software houses that design, develop and market tax software products. There is now a large array of products to choose from for each area of tax, including specialist areas such as property taxes and transfer pricing. Some of the Big 4 firms have also developed their own tax software products, which they market to clients, and hence compete against the software houses.

I think it is only a matter of time before industry, particularly amongst the large top end FTSE 100 type companies, also bring in-house this tax technology know-how and expertise.