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

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."

Financial Meltdown? Yes, but what about tax jobs?

By Simon Godley

Since Sept 2007, I have blogged a few times on this subject (see Credit Crunch - Impact on Tax Jobs and State of the tax job market?...and let's be honest!). I have previously painted a rather bleak picture for the market outlook over the next few years, and now it is clear that that partly painted picture has become reality, with the 15th, 16th or 17th Sept 2008 now lodged firmly into the history books forever as the black Monday (or Tuesday or Wednesday) when the credit bubble finally burst and showed its real venom.

Also this afternoon, I have sat and listened to Gordon Brown deliver his labour party conference speech - facing up to today's dire state of financial markets, but at the same time telling us how strong the UK economy is, and how well labour have done to 'create' 3m new jobs since 1997.

I do have some respect for Gordon Brown - as he said in his speech today, he is a serious politician needing to deal with some serious problems, and I think he will probably try to do all he can to rescue the country from financial doom. But he lost quite a lot of my respect when he supposedly claimed a few years ago that the UK has moved on from a boom and bust economy. This was an amazingly silly statement from a UK chancellor, given that ever since Columbus discovered America in 1492 has there been several speculative bubbles (coupled with a large credit situation) and they have without exception always burst. And this is a phenomena that will never stop happening. It is clearly part of human nature to get excited and greedy about something (eg a new discovery or technological innovation) and as a result value a market at a price now that will not be actually be seen for many many years to come. When we realise this, its too late, and the bubble inevitably bursts. This time round, it seems to be property and commodities, coupled with a vast amount of balance sheet trickery by the investment banks. We clearly learnt nothing from Enron!

But what about jobs? Well here we will see a knock on boom / bust. Gordon Brown's 3m jobs that the Labour party has created will undoubtedly be followed by a dramatic rise in unemployment from 1m to possibly up to 3m in the UK, thereby cancelling out the good work.

And what about tax jobs? Well, at the moment this seems a little harder to work out. Partly because the Big 4 firms, the largest employers of tax people, have not yet properly shown their hands as to their position on staffing levels. I think over the last year they have lost people through natural attrition (which might be, say 5%, for example) and they are generally not replacing these people. They have not yet made any announcements on redundancies - some are saying that they are not recruiting, whilst others are saying they are still recruiting (when they are presented with a very good candidate).

So what will happen? My prediction is that the Big 4 will make redundancies, and it will affect the tax teams. This will be particularly acute in tax teams that thrive on M&A work (specifically acquisitions) or structured products. I think there will be a few rounds of redundancies, possibly the first one will be in Q1 of 2009, possibly earlier. I think waves of redundancies may continue into 2010. On the in-house side of the market, I think there will be many job losses amongst the middle and front office tax teams from the banks. Within broader commerce/industry, there will probably be a good level of corporate consolidation, and in-house tax roles may suffer where there is overlap of job functions. Aside from that, I don't think in-house tax teams will be reduced much, unless they are forced to reduce in numbers because of broader cuts that are taking place in head office functions.

So the next few years will be very difficult for a lot of tax professionals, in that the tax job market simply can't be immune from what will be a depressed employment market. But how long will it continue? I have now revised my forecast from my blog article in June this year and I think confidence to generally start recruiting again will be in 2011-2012.

Gosh, I feel like a major doomster. On the slightly brighter side, I think the tax job market may benefit in 2 ways. People who concentrate on tax compliance and reporting will continue to be in demand. Also, the government are bound to raise taxes, and they will possibly do it through more corporate or indirect taxes, so there will remain the desire to have tax consultants (in practice) and/or in-house tax people looking at ways to reduce those increasing tax burdens.

That's my prediction, most of which is gut feel rather than any concrete evidence, but only time will tell the full story.

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.

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

Tax Jobs - Weekly Highlights

This week I am featuring two roles that both have a focus on US tax reporting. They are roles that come up quite often, particularly amongst the large US groups that have to follow the complex US financial reporting rules. Typically based within a European or EMEA head office, London or South East region, the roles are usually at Senior Tax Accountant/Manager level, and will mostly involve calculation of tax provisions under local and US Gaap rules, and possibly including both current and deferred tax. As you will expect, it is difficult to find many candidates that are doing this type of work, or able to do it, for two reasons. Firstly, it is a narrow/specialist sub-set of tax reporting, and follows complex rules, and so is quite difficult stuff. Also, many tax advisers avoid it to try to get onto the perceived higher quality, more interesting tax planning work. I think if you like tax compliance/spreadsheet work, and persevere and become good at it, then like many specialist areas of tax, it can be quite lucrative.


International Tax Manager (US Group) - Central London
£60,000 - £65,000 + Bens
See More Details


Tax Manager (US Group) - West London
£50,000 - £70,000 + Bens
See More Details

Deloitte is 'moving tax forward'

Deloitte’s website now incorporates a debating room, which is actually a clever marketing tool for their Tax Management Consulting practice. It is video based, so you see and hear the views of some of the Directors and Partners of the practice. It is very informative, and highly targeted towards Heads of Tax of large multinationals who may be looking to automate their tax reporting and compliance. You can also hear a couple of case studies, one from Carmel Moore, who is Director of Pfizer’s European Tax Centre and one from Andrew Constantine, Head of UK Tax Compliance for Lloyds TSB. It is a very useful web initiative for Heads of Tax who are not sure about tax technology, or how to get the most out of it for their business.

To see the above, click here

Deloitte have been developing this area of their tax practice for years, and they have gradually added on consulting services to their flagship tax software product Abacus, which Arthur Andersen developed and started selling to clients in the late 80s/early 90s.

Having worked in tax for Andersen in the mid-90s, I have seen the history on this, and a few of my peer group from the Andersen legacy who have stayed with the firm through its transition to Deloitte back in 2002, namely Mike Roberts and Andy Gwyther, are now very senior guys within Tax Management Consulting.

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.

GM announces tax charge

Source: Penny Sukhraj, Accountancy Age

General Motors has announced a $39bn charge in its third quarter results to remove net deferred tax assets from its books.

The Detroit-based company said that the charge, which affects the automaker's businesses in the US, Germany and Canada, would not impact operations or restructuring.

The hit on the books is the largest at GM so far, which has encountered a string of accounting irregularities since 2005.

GM's third quarter results, which are set to be reported today, are likely to show significant red ink, the New York Times reported.

Pre-Budget Report - Business / Corporation Taxes - Impact on Big Business

Putting my very rusty tax technical hat back on, I thought I would quickly review the main changes from Alistair Darling's pre-budget report that will affect businesses:

Capital Allowances - fire safety expenditure / biofuel plants / Plant & Machinery disposal to a non resident

Corporate Tax: disguised interest

Corporate Tax: foreign exchange matching rules

Holiday pay - NIC exemption to be withdrawn

Exemptions for Investment Managers

Landfill Tax

Leasing of Plant & Machinery

Life tax measures

Measuring Tax Losses

Tax simplification for UK/EU VAT rules, anti-avoidance legislation and corporate tax rules for related companies

Spreading of tax relief for pension contributions

Tax treatment of financial derivatives


Whilst I can try to get a grasp of what each of the above measures are trying to do, it is rather beyond me to be able to say whether businesses are better or worse off as a result of the proposed changes. Taking off my tax technical hat and putting on my slightly cynical political hat, I would imagine that the net result is that more business / corporate tax will be paid. Pensioners and second home-owners will benefit as a result of individuals tax changes, which could be nice for votes, but complex corporate tax rules may help to balance the books, whilst at the same time snatching a quite a lot more tax from private equity owners.

For more detailed analysis of the above proposals, you may want to look at:

www.ukbudget.com produced by Deloitte

Views from industry tax professionals on this most welcome

OECD Addresses UK Tax Competitiveness

Source: Tax-News.com, London

A recently published report from the Organisation for Economic, Co-operation and Development (OECD) has put forward the argument that globalisation increases the importance of raising tax revenues in the most efficient way so as to maintain competitiveness.

In a bid to raise awareness of the intensity of competition between global markets, the report argued that: "Globalisation creates a tension between the need to spend on social safety nets and the need to maintain tax competitiveness, which may reduce revenues."

The OECD report went on to argue that this pressure has encouraged governments to make the corporate income tax system more efficient by cutting statutory corporate tax rates and broadening the base. As the two have offset each other, corporate tax revenue as a share of GDP has been maintained.

The Organisation went on to observe that: "The United Kingdom was ahead in the game of cutting rates, but has lost ground more recently. It will thus be important to continue with the strategy of broadening the tax base, while cutting the rate."

However, it suggested that there are likely to be limits as to how far this can go, because tax competition also plays out on the base.

Pointing to the UK as an example, the OECD observed that the United Kingdom’s system of worldwide taxation creates incentives for headquarters to relocate offshore.

It observed that: "Thus the government should consider the case for moving to a dividend exemption system of corporate income taxation, which exempts foreign source dividend income from domestic tax."

SG comment: This article reminds me that often in the past senior executives of leading FTSE companies have threatened to relocate the parent to another non-UK jurisdiction, but then have not gone through with it. I would imagine the ultimate scale of disruption to staff, and potential loss of talent, would outweigh saving on some corporate tax.

Comments on this welcome

Tax Victory for Morrisons

Source: Accountancy Age 27 Sept 2007

A big tax win has seen Morrisons slash its effective tax rate to 15%, the company has said

Morrisons declined to say what its successful tax wrangle was about, indicating only that HM Revenue & Customs had closed some enquiries going back several years, and that a ‘significant amount of corporation tax’ was recoverable.

Normally, the company would record a six-month finance charge of around £30m, but this half-year claimed a credit of £2.4m as a result of the tax boost and other changes.

The reduced corporate tax burden gifted to large UK corporates by the government in the last budget also contributed to Morrisons good fortunes, leading to a large release of deferred tax following the change in rate of UK corporation tax from 30% to 28%.

Overall, the net finance credit of £2.4m reflected the impact of a reducing pensions deficit, the one-off interest benefit on repaid corporation tax and low levels of net debt ahead of the full roll out of the group’s investment programme.

Morrisons added that the victory was a one-off and expected to see the net finance cost returning to normal levels in the second half of the financial year.