Azure Global : 12/06/12

Thursday 6 December 2012

Tax avoidance targeted by European Union

The European Commission has announced a series of proposals designed to tackle the "scandalous loss of much-needed revenue" EU members suffer through tax evasion and tax avoidance.

These include a tougher stance on tax havens and ways to close loopholes.

Some big companies take advantage of these loopholes to avoid paying millions of euros in tax.

The Commission said around 1tn euros ($1.3tn; £800bn) is lost every year in the EU by tax avoidance and evasion.

"While member states must toughen national measures against tax evasion, unilateral solutions alone won't work," said Commissioner for Taxation Algirdas Semeta.

"In a single market, within a globalised economy, national mismatches and loopholes become the play-things of those that seek to escape taxation.

"A strong and cohesive EU stance against tax evaders, and those that facilitate them, is therefore essential."

'Harmful competition'

The package of measures includes two main recommendations. The first "encourages" member states to identify tax havens and place them on "national blacklists". Measures to persuade these havens to apply EU law are also laid out.

The second suggests ways for member states to address the kinds of legal technicalities and loopholes companies use to pay less tax.

Members should also adopt a common General Anti-Abuse Rule, whereby they can ignore artificial tax avoidance schemes and tax the underlying sum of money, the Commission said.

It also called for a clampdown on what it called "harmful tax competition", where member states compete with each other to provide the most benign tax environment. If necessary, the Commission said it would come up with the "legislative proposals for action".

A number of major global companies, including Amazon, Starbucks and Google, have come under fire in recent weeks for paying very little tax relative to their profits in the UK.

The UK Treasury is also clamping down on tax evasion and avoidance, both by companies and individuals, in an effort to raise much needed-revenue. This includes giving greater resources to the Inland Revenue to pursue those paying less tax than they should.

Azure Global’s vision is to be widely recognised as a reputed firm of financial business advisors, achieving real growth for ambitious companies and to become the first choice for F&A outsourcing for accountancy practices and businesses alike for more info visit our site Azure Global and join us On Facebook

Article source :http://www.bbc.co.uk

Starbucks agrees to pay more corporation tax

Coffee chain Starbucks has agreed to pay more UK corporation tax, after a public outcry over how little it pays Kris Engskov, managing director of Starbucks UK, announced that the company would pay "a significant amount of tax during 2013 and 2014, regardless of whether the company is profitable".One tax expert described the move as "unprecedented".HM Revenue and Customs reacted by saying that corporation tax "is not a voluntary tax".

"The public expects businesses to pay their fair share," the tax authorites added, "and HMRC will challenge, through the courts if necessary, any structures or tax payments that do not comply with the UK tax law."But Amazon and Google, also under fire for paying little UK tax, held firm.The extra tax could amount to £20m over the next two years, Mr Engskov said.

Bill Dodwell, head of tax policy at the accountants Deloitte, told the BBC that he suspected the figure was a "sensible number taking account of the scale of the business and their history of past losses".

"This is an unprecedented move for a company to announce this sort of change," he said.

'Joke'

Starbucks' announcement comes after much public anger over the revelation of how little corporation tax it pays in the UK, with some people saying they would boycott its outlets.The company has paid just £8.6m in corporation tax in its 14 years of trading in the UK, and nothing in the last three years, despite UK sales of nearly £400m in 2011.Starbucks has reported a taxable profit only once in its 15 years of operating in the UK, often reporting losses.

"It is extraordinary," Stephen Williams, Treasury spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, told the BBC. "People have been joking that some of these multinationals seem to think that paying tax is voluntary. Well Starbucks have just confirmed the joke really.

"Tax is something that is a legal obligation that you should pay according to the tax rules of a particular country. It's not a charitable donation in order to gain sort of brand value. But that seems to be what Starbucks are doing.Conservative MP Richard Bacon, who is a member of the Public Accounts Committee, expressed surprise at the move."They have recognised the public outrage at the fact that a company as large as Starbucks would... not be paying any corporation tax.

"They have realised that it is a PR problem and it is a PR response. It is nice for the exchequer to have a bit more money, but it is not a long-term solution to the problem that we face."Starbucks admitted that the degree of hostility and emotion surrounding the tax issue had "taken us a bit by surprise" and that the move was an attempt to rebuild trust with its customers.

"Since we started doing business here, we have always organised our tax affairs according to the letter of the law," said Mr Engskov."[But] with the backdrop of these difficult times, in the area of tax, our customers clearly expect us to do more," he said.

Mr Engskov added that the company had found it difficult to make profits in the UK, which has "the most competitive espresso market in the world", despite "two million customers visiting us each week in hundreds of stores across the UK".The extra tax payments will be funded by not claiming "tax deductions for royalties or payments related to our intercompany charges", Mr Engskov said. Mr Dodwell said he thought the coffee chain would not claim some of the deductions they may otherwise have been allowed to claim.

"We don't know the details - that will be between the company and HM Revenue and Customs," he said.

Solutions for retaining assets after a client dies

BY MATTHEW HALLORAN

Research tells us that 90 percent of heirs will reject their parents' financial advisors, and 70 percent of widows will change advisors after their husband's death. Can you afford that level of loss

I thought through my coaching clients for the last 10 years and realized that I have heard this excuse too many times.

I remember talking to a client and he was very upset. He had lost one of his largest clients. I asked him what happened and he said that the husband died and the spouse transferred her money to another advisor, saying, "You only talked to my husband when we came for our reviews."

How often do you lose the assets after your clients die? For those of you who are being honest with yourself, this happens a lot and you know it. But this article is supposed offer solutions, not a mean coach opening up an old wound. So what do you do?

You learn how to talk to them or hire a professional. There are people out there who are trained in these issues, and one of my clients is a pro. In fact, she is one of the chosen few who can handle really tough family issues - addiction, lifestyle issues, and entitlement issues. I have learned a lot about her technique over the time we have worked together and I wanted to share some of her insights. I would refer financial advisors to her at a moment's notice.

I asked her to give the top 10 things she could share without making all the advisors that read this guilty of practicing psychology without a license. Here is what she said.

1. Define your client. If you want to retain assets over the long-term, then your relationship must extend to present and future stakeholders.

2. Serve your client. Check your behaviors. Whom do they suggest your client is? With whom do you speak the most? Whom do you contact with questions or recommendations? Saying the couple or the family is your client is not enough. Your actions must reflect the same.

If your attention is skewed, you are missing the opportunity to develop a relationship with the other member(s) of the couple or family, and they will likely move the assets when the person they view as your client dies.

3. Know your client. If you are working with a couple or a family, you must get to know each person individually. Know their priorities, preferences, dreams and fears. Your job is not to reconcile differences. Your job is to know them and develop a plan comprehensive enough to honor them.

4. Understand your client. Hearing is not enough. You must understand. To understand, you must listen -- actively. Active listening means listening to understand, not to respond. Park your thoughts. You can come back to them. Listening in order to understand is one of the greatest services you can offer your clients.

5. Put purpose first. Your technical expertise makes you shine at offering solutions. But this expertise can also create blinders. You may be too quick to hear objectives and match them with methods. This challenge is exacerbated by clients' expectations that you want to hear their goals, and their lack of understanding of what their true goals are.

The purpose is the meaning, significance, or "why" behind the client's goal. Once their purpose is known, the true goals can be determined. What to do and how to do it will then follow.

6. Embrace resistance. Do you have clients who have yet to implement their plan in some way? Indeed, we've all been there. Investigate the disconnect behind the procrastination. It could be a warning sign that an important part of their purpose has not been met, or that they have lost sight of how the action steps promote their purpose.

7. Go wide. Your client is more than their financial assets. Each has social, intellectual and spiritual capital, as well. Capture and utilize those resources. Most Baby Boomers and their parents are more concerned with leaving an emotional inheritance than a financial one. Help them plan for these priceless assets, too.

8. Address the elephants. Addiction. Entitlement issues. Resentments. Unprepared heirs. As their trusted advisor, you know the issues that linger and drain life from your clients. Money won't solve these. Indeed, it often makes them worse. Listen as clients speak about the issues. Engage them in exploring options. Do not ignore the elephants merely because they are outside your expertise.

9. Do no harm. Know the limits of your expertise. Know when to refer or bring in an expert. Connect them with resources and encourage them to press on to address known challenges.

10. Collaborate. Embrace the wisdom and expertise of others. Communicate openly with your clients' other advisors. Exchange ideas and seek to reach consensus before sharing recommendations with your client. Meet jointly with your client and their advisors. The return on this investment will be increased clarity of communication, greater efficiency, and client appreciation for a streamlined process.

Article source :http://www.accountingtoday.com

PFP News

Washington, D.C. -- The board of directors of the CFP Board of Standards announced the resignations of its chairman, Alan Goldfarb, and two members of the Disciplinary and Ethics Commission.

After the CFP Board became aware of allegations that members of the board and other volunteers may have violated provisions of the CFP Board's Standards of Professional Conduct, the board of directors created a special committee, which retained outside counsel to investigate. The investigation found sufficient merit in the allegations against Goldfarb and the two members of the DEC to refer them for further proceedings under the CFP Board's disciplinary rules.

When presented with the committee's findings, Goldfarb and the two DEC members decided to resign from their posts. On October 30, Goldfarb addressed the situation in an open letter: "I am certain that this was a misunderstanding, and I welcome the opportunity to engage in good faith the CFP Board's enforcement process."

Goldfarb added: "I believe that under the circumstances, it is best for the organization that I resign pending the outcome of the process as both chair and a member of the board of directors, effective immediately."

2012 chair-elect Nancy Kistner has since been elected to fill the remainder of Goldfarb's term.

AICPA TO PUBLISH CONSUMER FINANCIAL EDUCATION BOOK

New York -- The American Institute of CPAs plans to publish its first book for the consumer market early next year.

The book, entitled Save Wisely, Spend Happily, combines the personal financial planning insights of 125 CPAs. It is scheduled to be published on January 3.

The book complements the AICPA's 360 Degrees of Financial Literacy volunteer effort. Institute members can begin purchasing the book now through CPA2Biz. Discounts are available for bulk orders. All proceeds from the sale of the book will go to support the CPA profession's financial literacy efforts.

The Spirit of Accounting: Using Private Company GAAP to Serve Statement Users' Needs

Let's now consider whether the U.S. needs two sets of GAAP for public and private companies. If so, we face many questions as to who should establish those standards and what they should look like.

I'm convinced that the most vocal arguments in favor of private company GAAP are primarily gut-level and emotional. However, it is also true that this issue has been debated and that steps have been taken to consider how to implement the basic idea.

As you know, NASBA has been involved with this effort, and former NASBA chairman Billy Atkinson has been appointed chair of the PCC. Another former chair, Diane Rubin, was also appointed after being nominated by your association. I hope that Billy, Diane and NASBA can lead the council to bring long-needed reforms to GAAP.

I encourage you to make the most of your involvement, because it opens up an avenue to do more good than you may have imagined. The risk is that not enough would be done to attack the real problems created by grossly deficient accounting standards.

A NEW PARADIGM

As I understand it, the council's first effort will aim to identify as many places as possible in GAAP that could be changed to be more useful in the private company setting. In my opinion, there is no better place to start. I urge the council to approach this effort from a perspective different from what you may now hold.

Philosophers use the word "paradigm" to describe an accepted worldview. Profound changes usually follow when we go through a "paradigm shift." For an example, just think how life has changed as a result of the iPhone and other means for mobile connectivity.

Specifically, I call on the PCC to stun the accounting world by adopting a users-first paradigm that would lead to assessing the usefulness of today's GAAP for meeting the needs of those who use private company statements, not those who prepare or audit them.

By analogy, it's well established that good things happen when managers focus on their customers' needs, instead of their own concerns. This shift to the consumer's point of view is at the heart of the Total Quality Management revolution that drastically changed the business world some 25 years ago. It can also be at the heart of a new dawn of relevant and useful financial statements.

THE USERS' NEEDS

So, what would that mean for private company reporting?

For one, this area is ripe for a user-oriented paradigm because there is much less distance, and a longstanding personal relationship, between private company statement issuers and users. As a result, effective financial reporting is more than likely to occur in a setting in which trust has already been established. This trust should not be jeopardized by reports that fail to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

To build on that point, I suggest that private company financial reports have usefulness in three primary settings.

First, these statements should help actual and potential lenders assess a company's creditworthiness. To do that, users must be provided with clear descriptions of an entity's cash flow. The reports must also reliably describe assets that have been or might be pledged as collateral, and they must usefully describe all existing obligations so the users can fully understand the present debt risk. Therefore, reports should use the direct method to describe operating cash flow and mark all assets and liabilities to market. All off-balance-sheet financing must be eliminated.

Second, private company statements should help owners and potential buyers assess the firm's value so they can conduct informed negotiations for its sale or acquisition. Again, direct-method cash flow information is important. Off-balance-sheet financing must be eliminated, and market-based information about the assets and liabilities is absolutely essential.

Finally, these financial statements will surely prove useful for managers.

Of course, but unfortunately, traditional GAAP statements do not serve these functions. Thus, any effort to merely tweak existing standards won't be good enough. For certain, any efforts to curtail the amount of reported information would be going in exactly the wrong direction.

To put it another way, those who advocated for private company GAAP are looking to reduce preparation costs. To be very clear, the search must be for the most useful statements, not the least expensive statements.

WHAT NEEDS CHANGING?

Here is the main implication for the council and the Financial Accounting Standards Board - and all accountants, for that matter. I am convinced that an objective and thorough evaluation of today's GAAP will reveal that virtually all standards need substantive reform. Superficial modifications will not be good enough. Instead, financial statements must be completely useful.

(I actually drafted the preceding paragraph several weeks ago and was especially pleased to read Billy's comments at the American Institute of CPAs' Council meeting held in October, in which he declared with these words his intent to evaluate all of GAAP: "If we do have fixes, we should first evaluate the fixes from the standpoint of all users, not just private company users.")

If the council does proceed along these lines, they need to ask new questions, such as, "Why are we still doing today what came into common practice before computers existed or when Queen Victoria had just ascended to her throne? Why do managers want to reduce the cost to prepare their statements if cutting those corners will increase their capital costs and diminish their company's perceived value?" My favorite is, "Why are impaired market values below book value considered to be reliable, but those above book value are not?"

These bold questions should lead to bold answers.

AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT

To hammer home this point, I'm going to list a few places where accounting practices could be improved: the cash balance, cash flow statements, accounts receivable and credit sales, inventory and cost of goods sold, investments in equity and debt securities, property and duh-preciation, intangible assets, financial instruments, consolidated financial statements, off-balance-sheet financing, income tax expense and deferred taxes, accounts payable, long-term debt, convertible debt, defined-benefit pensions, stock-based compensation, shareholders' equity, preferred stock, balance sheet classifications, income measurement and presentation, comprehensive income, and quarterly reporting. Once these are exhausted, I am sure we can find others to fix, like earnings per share.

In other words, GAAP is seriously broken because it has never been developed to address users' needs. Because it is seriously inadequate, it needs to be seriously reformed.

The council has been empowered to kickstart that reform by identifying ways to make private companies' financial statements useful. And, then, as Billy confirmed, it's a natural extension to question public company GAAP as well.

Indeed, I hope that FASB and the PCC can collaborate to produce a new GAAP that can be applied by all companies, private and public.

AN UNEXPECTED TURN

Putting users first differs from the agenda pushed by those who want an oversimplified GAAP that would be cheap to comply with but fail to provide useful information. If the guiding objective is to help capital markets become more efficient, then users should have a leading role in the standard-setting process for identifying and resolving the issues. Alas, they have been virtually neglected so far.

How do we know that supporters of a separate GAAP weren't putting users first? Evidence is provided by three things.

First is the composition of the Blue Ribbon Panel. More than 70 percent of the panel's 18 members were CPAs, chief financial officers, and other managers. There were only two users, along with two seats for a professor and a regulator. This mix does not reflect a paradigm that puts users' needs first.

Second is the backgrounds of the respondents to requests for comments. Bruce Pounder reported in CFO Magazine that 103 responses to the panel's request came from CPA practitioners and state societies, while only four came from users and business owners. The responses to a later request were terribly skewed toward CPAs because thousands of them clicked on a link that authorized the AICPA to send a prefabricated letter to the Financial Accounting Foundation. (While this gambit was legal, Bahnson and I described it as ineffective and illegitimate.)