Archive for the ‘Articles’ Category

The first Joint International Indirect Tax Conference between the Institute of Indirect Taxation and the Chartered Institute of Taxation will be held at the Hilton on the Park, 22 Park Lane, London, on Thursday 25 February 2010. In addition to a wealth of learning opportunities, tax professionals can earn up to 7 accredited CPD/CPE hours.

Jointly Chaired by Michael Conlon QC, President of the Institute of Indirect Taxation and Stephen Coleclough, President of the Confédération Fiscal Européenne and Immediate Past Chairman, CIOT Technical Committee.

The Conference will bring together leading specialists from multinational corporations, top professional firms, the European Commission, Tax Chambers and HM Revenue and Customs.

Seats are limited, so reserve your spot early and receive a limited time discount on admission.

Learn more and register today.

There are no delusions that converting from GAAP to IFRS will be herculean effort for most tax departments, but with the increasing globalization of business the switch is inevitable.

However, peril can be turned into promise!

SAP explores the process changes, the technology shifts and the inherent benefits of the GAAP to IFRS changeover in the insightful white paper “Streamlining Your Conversion to IFRS: Challenges, Choices, and Transformative Technologies.”

Learn more at SAP.com and be sure to come back to Tax 2.0 to discuss your IFRS war stories.

How to Harmonize and Accelerate Financial Reporting to Meet the Challenges of IFRS

Sponsored by SAP BusinessObjects

Date: Tue, Nov 17, 2009
Time: 11:00 A.M. ET
What time is this for me?
Duration: 1 hour

Later this year, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will discuss whether publicly-listed companies in the U.S. will need to transition their financial reporting from U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (U.S. GAAP) to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Such a transition will likely have a significant impact on all operational areas – and not just on finance and accounting departments – within publicly-listed firms.

From this webcast, you will learn how to address key differences between U.S. GAAP and IFRS to enable your company to minimize risks, costs and timeframes associated with fulfilling new financial reporting requirements.

Presenters

Ian Wright
Principal, SAP Practice
Deloitte Consulting LLP

Alfred Popken
Principal
Deloitte & Touche LLP
 
Tom Yoder
National Practice Lead
IFRS/ERP General Ledger
SAP

Register Today!

Sometimes, to move forward you have to take a step back. Deloitte delivers sound advice for tax departments struggling with the deluge of regulatory and business climate changes over the past few years with this insightful paper “Tax Accounting Processes: Time to get back to basics?”

Read more on the Deloitte site.

One might think that the mantra “Think Globally — Act Locally” is reserved solely for environmentalists. The Whitepaper “Tax Operational Strategy and Execution: Can Tax Departments Keep Pace?” from Deloitte explores how this mantra is exactly how tax departments need to start thinking about their processes and systems — not only for the impending globalization of tax, but to also find new efficiencies today. 

Read the full Whitepaper on the Deloitte site and come back to Tax 2.0 to sound off on how your tax department is evolving new efficiencies to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.

The tax department is under siege and being bombarded from all sides of the organization to add higher value in infinitely shorter cycles of time. No longer being able to rest after compliance activities are completed – today’s tax professional must be a tax prognosticator, parsing and dissecting data to limit tax exposure today and tomorrow.

For many tax departments their only defense is the stalwart spreadsheet – the columned wonder of tabulation and formulaic salvation that has been a staple in office environments since the mass proliferation of desktop computing. For most tax departments spreadsheets still serve as the only form of “automation,” hindering not only accurate compliance, but also falling woefully short of today’s robust tax reporting needs.  

Ventana Research’s Robert D. Kugel, exposes why these two dimensional tools simply will not suffice in today’s multifaceted world of tax reporting and analysis.

Read more from Robert’s blog entitled Taking Tax Out of the Closet

Then be sure to come back to Tax 2.0 and sound off on your Spreadsheet horrors or to defend this time tested application.

It’s no surprise that the benefits of tax department and IT synergy can be numerous and far reaching. So why are so many tax departments still relying on manual data management and other time-consuming manual processes?

This week Tax 2.0 offers an insightful blog from Ventana Research exploring the relationship between the two departments and where IT can make a true difference from a data management perspective.

Read the full Ventana Research blog post: How IT Can Help Pay Taxes

After reading the article, join us back on Tax 2.0 to comment on how you have leveraged the skill sets in IT to find new efficiencies in your tax department.  

The Tax Intelligence Report, developed and managed by Editor Kathleen Jennings, showcases the top talent in tax today. Kathleen has graciously agreed to “pay this information forward” to the readers of Tax 2.0

Our first offering from The The Tax Intelligence Report focuses on Robert Tharaeparambil, Vice President - Global Tax at News Corporation. Learn more as Robert discusses the complexities of managing tax compliance in a global media vertical.

Read Robert’s full profile on The Tax Intelligence Report and be sure to come back to Tax 2.0 to share your thoughts.

Tax 2.0 not only wants to keep our users informed of the latest tax issues, but also the latest social networking tools that relate to tax.

We are pleased to share with you the CFO.com Prediction Market, an interactive tool that asks users to place their bets (and win prizes should you be a financial prognosticator extraordinaire) on such hot topic issues like:

• When will the first U.S. companies have to adopt IFRS
• Unemployment
• The Dow
• CFO turnover
• Plus many more

Once you place your bets you can join the online conversation and tell others the facts or gut feelings behind your predictions.

Beyond IFRS
Tax 2.0 would also like to hear from you (either in comments or by e-mail) about what other tax trends beyond IFRS you would like to place your bets on.

Get started today at CFO.com

The “Center on Budget and Policy Priorities” has developed a tidy state breakdown outlining the sales and income tax increases in action or on the horizon in an effort to help abate skyrocketing deficits.

Hand-in-hand with tax increases comes increasing complexity. How is your tax department preparing for this deluge of increased work? Sound off in the comments section after reading the full report, “Tax Measures Help Balance State Budgets - A Common and Reasonable Response to Shortfalls”.