Managing Taxes for Large Businesses in a Changing Environment
Panel will discuss many of the current challenges of managing taxes for large multi-national, multi-state corporations.
First Topic: Managing repercussions of disclosure of a company’s tax minimization strategies by the media and advocacy groups and how it is impacting future tax planning.
- Russ Hamilton will lead discussion –
Question: Tax Planning and “PR” – Discuss how companies (Board of Directors and Executive Management) are handling the disclosure of corporate tax planning that may be viewed as unethical or even immoral, by the media or advocacy groups. Of course, the disclosure of Apple’s tax reductions strategies comes to mind as well as the reports on Starbuck, Amazon and Google’s tax avoidance strategies as well as articleswhich calls out companies not paying US tax or, conversely, listing the companies with the largest US corporate tax bills (good versus evil companies!). Our audience may be interested in how corporate tax departments should assist top management in dealing with reputational risks, the Wall Street Journal effect and the negative perceptions of a company’s stakeholders (including customers) to tax minimization strategies which are perfectly legal.
- SteveSchoonmaker will lead discussion –
Is the possibility of disclosure of tax minimization strategies having an impact on implementation of tax planning for large corporations? Or does the panel see corporations going full steam ahead in support of lowering tax liabilities to stay competitive and increase shareholder value? Any reticence in being “too aggressive” (can you provide instances when companies have backed-off tax reduction strategies because of potential fallout?)?
- David Northcutt will lead discussion –
Is state tax planning dead? Is anything being touted by your firms as a better approach for reducing/minimizing state tax liabilities without undue risk? Bring into the discussion the impact of state tax incentives programs which are being scrutinized more closely by both the government, advocacy groups and the media. Is the prevailing wisdom that incentives are necessary to either avoiding losing business to other states or attracting new business from other states? Or is there is change in perspective by state government to attract business by creating a more conductive environment (less regulation, lowering taxes for businesses and/or business owners and employees)? How does this debate bear on company’s state tax planning strategies?
Second Topic: Understanding and communicating the potential impact of U.S. tax reform proposals to company stakeholders and other current tax developments.
- David Northcutt will lead discussion –
What is the most important information corporate tax departments should be sharing with management about the now-bipartisan support of tax reform in the US? For example, are corporate tax departments and their consultants recommending that companies continue to sit on foreign cash balances and take a wait-and-see approach to US tax reform?
- Russ Hamilton will lead, but will ask all panel members to weigh in on this question -
Do your respective firms believe is the near term likelihood of –
- Working through Washington political gridlock to achieve a lower corporate tax rate by broadening the tax base and eliminating tax deductions, exclusions, exemptions and tax credits? If so, what time frame is likely?
- US moving to a territorial system?
- Possibility of another repatriation scheme to lower the tax bite associated bringing cash back to the US for purpose of investing in US drawing down foreign cash balances and moving corporate cash to the US?
- Russ Hamilton will lead discussion –
Discuss the new CERT rules and when they apply and what should corporate tax departments be focused on with regard to future corporate transactions/reorganizations?
- David Northcutt will lead discussion –
The Intangible Regulations have been put on hold by the IRS. However, the regulations are not going away. What changes to the proposed regulations are likely to be made by the IRS? How should be tax department be preparing for the inevitable implementation of the regulations from a tax accounting and tax compliance perspective?
Third Topic: How are tax departments assisting companies as they prepare to fully implement the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)?
- David Northcutt will lead discussion:
How are tax departments assisting their companies in the full implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), in particular companies grapple with developing the corporate compliance strategy in determining whether or not to: 1.) continue to provide Health insurance coverage to rank and file employees, 2.) consider dropping insurance coverage in favor of employees obtaining coverage through the government mandated exchanges, 3.) reducing employee hours to avoid the requirement of providing health insurance coverage, and finally 4.) increasecost of services or goods to cover the added cost of healthcare?
Fourth Topic: How are companies managing tax risk in emerging markets, in particular India and China?
- Steve Schoonmaker will lead discussion:
One of the issues in the forefront of discussions with Boards and executive management is dealing with tax risk associated with emerging markets – in particular China and India. Can you please describe what the risk is and what the best practices are for mitigating that risk.
Fifth Topic: Providing insight in how the IRS is utilizing the new required financial statements disclosures and Form UTP.
- Russ Hamilton will lead discussion –
Please discuss examples of how the IRS is utilizing financial statement tax disclosures and the Schedule UTP and whether or not that is helping the IRS better identify and audit tax issues. Speculate as to how our jobs would change if the IRS developed a
Sixth Topic: What are the some new developments and best practices in the tax compliance/tax accounting world?
- Steve Schoonmaker will lead discussion:
Question 1: Discuss new concerns or areas of increased scrutiny by SEC and/or PCAOB on tax accounting compliance and disclosures.
Question 2: Although most tax accountants really are attached to their spreadsheets, should they be eliminated in favor of new technologies supporting tax compliance and tax accounting? Are the systems sophisticated enough to effectively manage these processes?
Question 3: What are proactive tax departments doing to speed up the quarterly and year-end closing process?
- Russ Hamilton will lead discussion –
Can you each name one process/technology improvement in a client’s Tax Department which has significantly improved the accuracy/improvement of the tax accounting/compliance environment?