SAO Regime - Tax Systems opportunities

By Simon Godley

Whilst I sense that the Senior Accounting Officer (SAO) legislation, in which all FDs of companies with UK turnover of over £200m have to annually certify the accuracy of their tax reporting systems or face personal penalties, is moving up the financial agenda and maybe being taken more seriously by FDs/Heads of Tax, this has had so far very little impact on in-house tax teams needing to hire someone to do a review.

In the last 12 months since the note on this appeared in the pre-budget report, I have seen no more than 3-4 situations where a company which is affected by the legislation actually actively seek to recruit a tax auditor / accountant to perform a tax systems review. This is possibly not a major surprise as:

a. we have been in a major recession and companies have severely struggled to increase headcount within an in-house tax function, for both perm and temp roles

b. where a company has a well established in-house tax function, someone within the department has had to take on this review work in addition to their usual duties

c. a number of companies will get their regular accountants / tax advisers to do a review of this, possibly as part of a tax audit

I suspect more contract roles will appear for this type of review work over the next 12 months, as this issue climbs up the financial reporting agenda.

In the meantime, I am working on one specific SAO related Tax Accountant role with a London based financial services group. This is looking for someone to work on an initial 3 months project to assess and make recommendations on accuracy of tax data in the accounting system. The company is happy to pay up to £600 per day, and so any interested parties should contact me on sg@talentpoolselection.com to discuss further.

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

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

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

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.

Talentpool hosts Tax Technology Evening - 29th April 2009

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.

In-House Tax Movers - December 2008

KBC Financial Products, a major subsidiary of Belgian banking group KBC Bank NV, has recently appointed Mahesh Lakhani as their new Global Head of Tax, based in London. Mahesh joins from Credit Suisse, where he was a Tax Director, responsible for front office advice to the equities and emerging markets teams. Mahesh is a very senior level tax executive, and joins KBC with a wealth of tax experience within investment banking.

Bridget Bolton has recently been recruited by Ricardo, a leading provider of technology and product innovation to the automotive industry, as Head of Tax & Treasury. Bridget joins from telecoms group Three, where she was Director of Tax & Treasury. Bridget is a very experienced tax executive, with 20 years’ experience in the field.

Glynis Moore has been appointed as Head of Group Tax with Fujitsu in the UK, the leading IT services group. She was previously Head of Group Tax with McBride Plc, the consumer goods manufacturer. Glynis has a broad tax background, having worked at a senior levels both within practice and industry.

Jumeirah in Dubai appoints Tax Director

Source: Tax Careers Magazine

Dubai-based luxury hospitality group Jumeirah, which encompasses the 7 star hotel, the Burj Al Arab, has appointed Mariel Yard as Director of Tax.

Previously a Senior Manager - international tax structuring with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Dubai, she was previously based in Nicosia, Cyprus, she has also held roles with Eurofreight Logistics and NCR (middle east).

Yard told Tax Careers: 'Being an inhouse tax director in such a growing and dynamic group, I'm often asked to step outside my comfort zone and become more involved in business decision-making. It takes a willingness to work hard, but offers enormous challenges.'

Yard is fluent in Arabic, English and Greek.

Tax & Treasury man gets Group FD role

Capital & Regional plc, the co-investing property asset manager, has appointed Charles Staveley as group finance director, he will join the board with effect from 1st October, 2008. Before joining the company in September 2007 as finance director, he was head of tax and treasury at COLT Telecom Group and prior to this he held roles with various other companies, including at security printer De La Rue Group plc, US-based aircraft and financial services group Textron Inc, and secure printing and industrial group Novar plc. Staveley qualified as a chartered accountant with Arthur Andersen and has additional tax and treasury qualifications.

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

Head of Tax - some new appointments

GlaxoSmithKline has recently appointed Helen Jones as their Senior VP Tax, based in the Brentford HQ. Helen is a very senior industry tax figure, joining GSK from Reuters where she was Group Head of Tax.

Laing O’Rourke, the UK’s largest privately owned construction company has recently appointed John Gearing as their new Head of Tax. John joins from Standard Bank in London, where he was International Tax Manager. John has an extensive commercial tax background, his previous roles include a successful 15 year period as Head of Tax in London for DKW, the investment bank.

Quintain Estates and Development PLC, the FTSE 250 property development group, has recently appointed Roy Flood as Head of Tax. He joins from property services company Erinaceous Group Plc, where he was Group Tax Manager. Roy has previously worked in tax for a number of other big name corporates, including BP, Whitbread and Cemex.

Senior in-house Tax Man appointed as FD

The board of Brinkley Mining Plc has appointed Mark Fresson as finance director of the company with immediate effect. Fresson is a chartered accountant, having qualified with Touche Ross in 1989. He spent ten years in various tax-related roles before joining Nomura’s principal finance group in 2000 as Head of Tax and Accounting. He formed part of the team that left Nomura to establish the Terra Firma Capital Partners private equity operation in 2002, where he ultimately held the position of senior tax and structuring counsel.

Insurance Tax man appointed by Marsh

Source: Tax Careers Magazine

Praveen Sharma is to head up the newly-created insurance regulatory and tax consulting practice of Marsh, the leading insurance broker and risk adviser.

The practice will provide multinational clients with support and information to help them evaluate regulatory and premium tax risks arising from their insurance and alternative risk-financing programmes in all parts of the world.

Sharma joins from Aon, where he was head of Regulatory & Compliance for the EMEA region, a post held since 2001. He also advised multinational companies on insurable risk optimisation strategies , including accounting, regulatory and taxation issues.

A qualified chartered accountant, Sharma was a tax adviser for both KPMG and Ernst & Young for 14 years in total, where he was involved with the management of UK corporate tax issues for some of the world's largest insurance companies.

Timothy J Mahoney, president of global risk management for Marsh, said: 'As multinational businesses continue to look for better ways to manage risk and achieve efficiencies, they have sharpened their focus on understanding the array of country-specific insurance and related tax regulations that affect their programmes.'

Tax Jobs - Weekly Highlights

This week I refer to the interim tax market, which I feel will most likely remain strong during a downturn, that's if there becomes pressure on in-house tax departments not to recruit permanent members. Things would have to get very tough for this to follow. The job below is very suitable for an ex-Head of Tax, who may have moved onto the contracting market after a number of years in a senior permanent capacity in-house.

Senior Tax Adviser - Interim
Surrey £600 - £800 per day
See More Details

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.'

Tax Directors - Quotes

Through the process of reviewing material for this blog, I am trying to pick up quotes from Tax Directors of multinational groups.

I like quotes from people, I think they reveal a lot of truth, particularly when the person quoting has first hand experience of the subject they are commenting on.

Here are a couple that I have uncovered recently:

"To be a successful in-house tax director you have to be willing to step out of your comfort zone of just dealing with tax matters and become more involved in business decision making. I work with Treasury on funding issues, HR on expatriate issues such as equity compensation and finance on business model structuring."

Alex Yuen, Director of Corporate Tax at The Walt Disney Company (Asia Pacific)

"The profile of the tax department has increased and it is no longer sufficient [for a tax director] to be knowledgeable about tax. A tax director must be part of the management team and be involved in establishing the direction of a company. It takes a willingness to work hard."

William Ramirez, Senior Tax Counsel, Altria Corporate Services

In House Tax People Moves - February 2008

By Simon Godley

International Power Plc has recently appointed David Smith as the new Head of Group Tax. David joins from Reuters Plc, where he was Head of International Tax. David has an impressive background, and has progressed quickly in his career, having originally trained with Arthur Andersen in the mid-90s before his first move into industry with Reuters.

Tesco has recently appointed Bob Fitzsimmons as their new Global VAT Director, based in the Cheshunt headquarters. Bob’s previous position was as Head of Indirect Tax (Rest of World) for Japan Tobacco, based in Geneva. With an initial background in HMC&E, Bob has worked as an in-house international VAT adviser since 1990.

BP Plc's group tax function has recently hired James Dennison as a Senior Tax Adviser. James joins from Unilever, where he developed his tax career over a 10 year period, joining as a UK Tax Accountant in 1997 and progressing to Head of Tax for Asia, Africa, Middle East & Turkey, based in Singapore. James originally qualified as a CTA with KPMG in 1996.

Leading Central London office property specialist Derwent London has hired David Westgate as their new Group Tax Manager. David originally comes from a finance background in industry before specialising in corporate tax. David was previously Tax & Treasury Director for Sunguard, a financial services software company.


Please contact Simon Godley on 07771 762353 or e-mail to: sg@talentpoolselection.com if you would like to announce a new tax appointment for someone or for yourself on this blog.

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.

New Tax Counsel at Diamond Resorts

Source: Tax Grotto

Diamond Resorts International® (DRI), a global leader in the vacation ownership industry, has appointed Keith Holmes as Vice President & Tax Counsel. Holmes will be reporting to David Palmer, Chief Financial Officer of DRI.

Prior to joining DRI, Holmes held the position of Vice President and Tax Counsel with Caesars Entertainment, Inc., providing tax and legal counsel on development, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, federal, state and international tax planning, structuring, audit defense & compliance. Holmes also served as a tax consultant to international clients in the gaming and lodging industries during his nearly 10 year tenure with Arthur Andersen LLP.

"Keith brings with him a wealth of experience in all areas of tax law, M&A and corporate finance," says Simon Crawford-Welch, President and COO of DRI. "We welcome his expertise and experience to ensure that every transaction and opportunity is fully researched and structured in such a manner as to ensure compliance and optimal benefits to Diamond Resorts International."

Holmes received a B.S. in Accounting from the University of Nevada, Reno, Juris Doctor at Pepperdine University Law School and L.L.M. in Taxation from Georgetown University Law Center. He is a member of the State Bar of California.

"Keith's experience will be leveraged to create and enhance tax efficiencies in existing operations and evaluate tax aspects of expansion opportunities," says David Palmer, Chief Financial Officer of DRI. "Having an internal resource will ensure timely decisions and consistent communications with our external tax service providers to support our plans for sustained growth and profitability."

Senior In-House Tax Appointments in the US

Source: Tax Careers Magazine

At Marathon Oil, Stephen Landry replaced tax veteran William Meara as tax VP. Landry, who was director of tax, compliance and reporting for Marathon, succeeded Meara on 1 January 2008. Landry joined Marathon in January 2007. Previously, he spent 22 years with Ernst & Young. He became tax partner for E&Y in 1998 and transferred to the Houston energy practice in 2000.

Viacom has appointed Jay Kushner to a newly-created role as senior vice-president of global taxation and treasury. He will report to Thomas Dooley, CFO of Viacom. Kushner joined Viacom in June 2005 as the company's vice-president and general tax counsel. Before joining Viacom, he was treasurer and general tax counsel at Young & Rubicam, a global advertising agency and marketing services company. Prior to that he led the international tax operations at PepsiCo and was an executive with Coopers & Lybrand.


SG comment: Whilst the general perception is that tax skills are easily transferable between different sectors, I think the above two appointments show that perhaps the very top tax jobs will be taken by tax execs who have deep understanding and experience of a company's sector.

Coke appoints new Tax Counsel

Source: International Tax Review

William Hawkins has been elected general tax counsel and a vice president of Coca-Cola. He has worked in the company's Office of General Tax Counsel since 1998 and will now lead Coca-Cola's tax policy and strategy team.

Before Coca-Cola, Hawkins was a partner in two law firms in Washington, DC.


SG comment: I have not heard of William Hawkins before, but I remember that around the 1998 period, Coca-Cola merged in Europe with the Hellenic Bottling Company, and relocated the European Head Office to Athens in Greece, which was an interesting choice of location. As a result, a number of senior people left including Peter Culver from tax, who I believe is still UK Head of Tax for Nestle.

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.

In-House tax execs moving back to Big Four......

By Simon Godley

In my last two blog postings on people moves, I have highlighted senior tax executives (either Head of Tax or senior divisional tax manager) that have been attracted back into the profession into Big Four firms at senior levels.

Clearly the Big Four are tempted to bring into their tax service lines senior industry tax execs, I guess because they have very valuable insight (ie from the 'users' perspective) of a particular industry. Notable moves have been from financial services / insurance groups into a Big Four's FS tax practice in London. Also, the tax service line is bringing in a well known figure in that industry, someone who will have a valuable network and possible in-roads into existing and new clients.

However, I have also picked up that there are risks for the practice in opting for this type of hire. A senior Head of Tax will be looking to join the practice at Tax Partner level to offer them the financial incentive for the move. A Head of Tax of a very large corporate group could be earning a package of £200 - £350k including bonus, and so will need to join as an equity partner. This salary level is above what could be offered at Director level. This could lead to two areas of concern for the practice. Firstly, this new Tax Partner is under pressure to bring in the revenue stream proportional to their salary level, and to demonstrate that they can convert their industry contacts into fees, which I suspect is not easy. Secondly, and more of an immediate issue, is what impact this appointment may have internally to those at Director level in the practice who are trying to carve out a progression to a Partner role. In a very buoyant and growing economic backdrop, these two issues may become less significant, but in more tense and uncertain times?

For the above reasons, I think this is why the vast majority of Tax Partner appointments are home grown, but clearly sometimes the Big Four like to take more of a risk to raise their profile in a particular sector.

Deloitte adds more in-house tax expertise to FS practice

Source: International Tax Review

Deloitte has appointed Ellie Patsalos, a vice-chairperson of the UK firm, as its new global head of tax for the financial services industry. The firm has also hired Irene Salvi, the head of tax for Swiss Re, to lead its Swiss financial services tax practice.

In-House Tax Movers - October 2007

Peugeot Citroen UK has recently hired Phil Ward as their UK Tax Manager, being the No.1 tax role with the UK group. Phil joins from InBev, the beverage group that owns Stella Artois, where he was Head of UK Tax. Phil originally trained in tax with PwC in the mid-late 90s before moving into industry in 1999.

Laing O’Rourke, the UK’s largest privately owned construction company has recently appointed Bernard Tucker to bring tax in house for the first time. Bernard joins with a wealth of commercial tax experience, having led the tax function for Inmarsat Plc for the last 6 years.

Global engineering and construction group Black & Veatch has recently hired Frederich During as their new European Tax Manager, based in the UK. Frederich has joined from NSK Europe, the bearings manufacturing group, where he was European Tax & VAT Manager. Frederich originally trained with Deloitte & Touche.


If you have recently made a move within the in-house tax market, or know someone who has, feel free to pass through the details to simon@inhousetax.co.uk for announcement on this blog.

What's on a Head of Tax's mind currently?

Source: Bob Reynolds, editor of International Tax Review (8 October 2007)

I asked a group of eminent tax professionals recently what were the most pressing tax issues on their desks at present. As you might expect, transfer pricing emerged as the consistent number one. The sheer complexity of transfer pricing issues and the unpredictability of outcomes was a familiar theme.

The second topic was tax audits. One global tax director said: 'What gets me is the fact that often revenue authorities do not understand our business. They do not appreciate how we arrive at our assumptions for tax due and therefore they decide to impose a stringent tax audit.'
He says that these audits rarely reveal anything. So the authority in question is no better off at the end of the process. An illusion of activity has been created and nothing else.

'They still have no greater appreciation of where we are and so they sit and gestate for six months. Then they put in another audit. This can go on two or three times.'
He points to the absolute frustration of being involved in an exercise which is time-consuming and expensive but which is generally fruitless. I have found echoes of this theme throughout the world.