Likewise, tax planning, if done right, allows a company to
reap many rewards, but do it wrong and the tax authorities
could hound you for years to come.
Two forthcoming issues of International Tax Review
will include survey results of the leading tax transactional
(March) and tax planning firms (May) around the world. This is
your opportunity to vote for the firms that you think deserve
to be known as the best of the best. The deadline for voting is
January 11 2018.
Alongside rankings of the top firms, the ITR team
will review the transactional and tax planning trends across
the world to help you see what’s changed and what
is yet to come.
This is a secret ballot. Your choices will be used
anonymously and no one will be able to attribute them to
you.
Submissions should be sent to
anjana.haines@euromoneyplc.com in the following
format:
Transactional: tax advice given as
part of M&A, joint ventures and other corporate deals.
(List a maximum of three firms)
Planning: tax advice on structures
designed to pay the right amount of tax in the right
place at the right time in accordance with both the letter
and spirit of the law, trying to avail itself of the
legitimate benefits afforded by the law so as to contributing
to the full actualisation of the potential of tax policy as
an instrument of change and avoiding the pitfalls of double
or multiple taxation. For example, transfer pricing, thin
capitalisation, VAT planning. (List a maximum of three
firms)
The two new surveys will be unlike our awards dinners and annual World
Tax publication. The awards ceremonies
recognise innovation across a portfolio of work over the
previous 12 months. In World
Tax, we identify the world’s leading
tax firms, ranked on the depth of practice, client feedback,
international capabilities and reputation.
The surveys will break these classifications down to
highlight firms which perhaps specialise in offering one aspect
of tax advice, or which have domestic dominance but little or
no formal international network. Similarly, the surveys will
allow full-service accounting firms and larger law firms to
gauge the strength of one side of their tax practice against
their smaller peers. As the firms will be listed on a
country-by-country basis, firms can also compare practices in
different parts of the world. We define tax planning as
transfer pricing, indirect tax work and tax structuring not
connected to any deal of substance. In our consideration
for the tax transactional survey rankings, we note M&A and
capital markets work as well as IPOs, spin-offs, carve-outs and
other transactional work.
The firms will be ranked from a poll of corporate taxpayers.
We encourage you to share this survey so everyone gets to voice
their opinion.
Firms from the following 50 jurisdictions will be
ranked:
Argentina , Australia, Austria, Baltic States (Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania), Belgium, Brazil, Canada Chile, China,
Colombia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece,
Gulf Cooperation Council, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland,
Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico,
Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland,
Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain,
Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, UK, Ukraine, Uruguay, US,
Venezuela and Vietnam.
In each poll, please vote for the leading firm, in your
opinion, in the three jurisdictions where you have most
experience. When deciding on your vote, consider the technical
knowledge, partner input, communication, responsiveness speed
and value for money of the service you received as well as the
firm’s relationships with tax officials. The
transactional survey mainly refers to external work, such as
M&A deals, joint ventures and other corporate deals. The
planning survey will focus more on internal work and tax advice
on structures designed to minimise tax liability, such as
transfer pricing, restructuring, thin capitalisation and VAT
planning.
The deadline for voting is Thursday 11 January 2018.