Tax chiefs use experience to deal with economic turmoil
01 December 2008
The growing economic crisis has hit multinational companies everywhere. For the ten most admired tax directors in Latin America, the challenges are the same as for large corporations the world over, but there are additional pressures they must deal with. However, Catherine Snowdon finds that experience means tax leaders in the region are coping with these pressures with a positive attitude
"I was at a party with my boss on a Friday afternoon, we were celebrating the birthday of one of the other directors and my boss got an email on his Blackberry saying "Chavez has just expropriated our plant in Venezuela." Just like that," says Timothy Cottrell, tax director at CEMEX, a buildings materials supplier and cement producer. "Later on that week we were given a date when we would have to give them the keys and that date was complied with. That was the date they took over the plant."
To a taxpayer in a developed country, this kind of action seems unfathomable. And yet, in countries where political instability is an accepted and expected part of business, Chavez's behaviour does nothing more than raise eyebrows. After all, there is little the companies can do.
"They said that they wanted to negotiate a fair price, but we were worlds...
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