Final days to vote for the top tax transactional and tax planning firms

January 26, 2017

Two forthcoming issues of International Tax Review will include surveys of the leading tax transactional (March) and tax planning firms (May) around the world. This is your opportunity to vote.

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, number of partners, international network and reputation.

The surveys will break these classifications down to highlight firms who perhaps specialise in offering one aspect of tax advice, or who 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. Under tax transactional, we include M&A and capital markets work.

The firms will be ranked from a poll of corporate taxpayers.

Firms from these 50 countries or 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, fees, partner input, communication, responsiveness, and speed 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.

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.

Country: Firm:

Planning: tax advice on structures designed to minimise tax liability. For example, transfer pricing, thin capitalisation, VAT planning.

Country: Firm:

This is a secret ballot. Your choices will be used anonymously and no one will be able to attribute them to you. The deadline for voting is Monday 30 January.