Asia Tax Awards shortlists announced

The winners will be presented with their awards at a dinner at the Goodwood Park Hotel in Singapore on May 5.

Download the nominations here

The award categories are divided into two sections: national and regional, covering 15 jurisdictions. Three separate categories within the national section cover tax, transfer pricing, and litigation and disputes.

The regional categories cover areas such as innovation, technology, compliance and reporting, FATCA and withholding tax, and the best newcomer, which is for an international tax practice that is five years old or less.

For the first time, the awards also include recognition of the top individual practice leaders in the region.

As expected, the big four professional services firms are to the fore for numbers of nominations, but law firms and other more niche advisers are also prominent in the shortlists.

KPMG have been nominated for 13 of the national tax awards, followed by Deloitte with 11, Baker & McKenzie with 10, and PwC with nine. The other firms to earn more than one national tax nomination are DFDL, DLA Piper, Taxand, Tilleke & Gibbins, VDB Loi and Withers. 

For transfer pricing, KPMG is also out in front, appearing on 14 shortlists, Deloitte is next with 12, Quantera Global, an independent firm, has nine, PwC seven, Baker & McKenzie five and EY three.

Twenty six different firms have earned a place on the shortlists for the 15 national tax litigation and disputes awards. Deloitte lead the way here with 12, then comes KPMG with 11, Baker & McKenzie with 9, and PwC on seven.

Though the biggest accounting firms lead the way, for the most part, for numbers of nominations, all shortlisted firms will attend the awards dinner with an equal chance of winning. The competition is likely to be fierce.

Download the nominations here.

Resumption

More than five years after they were last held in November 2010, the Awards will be held once again on Thursday May 5 2016, following the Asia Tax Forum, at the Goodwood Park Hotel in Singapore.

See coverage of previous Asia Tax Awards: 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009.

Methodology

Between January and February 2016, companies, law firms, tax advisers, accountants and other tax service providers from these jurisdictions:

Australia; China; Hong Kong; India; Indonesia; Japan; Malaysia; Myanmar; New Zealand; Pakistan; Philippines; Singapore; South Korea; Taiwan; Thailand and Vietnam

were eligible to submit three examples of their best work for consideration for the national tax, transfer pricing, and litigation and disputes awards.

The awards for Asia Tax Firm of the Year, Asia Transfer Pricing Firm of the Year, Asia Tax Litigation and Disputes Firm of the Year, Asia Indirect Tax Firm of the Year and Best Newcomer (international tax practices of <5 years) will be judged from these submissions.

There were separate submission forms for the regional awards covering indirect tax, tax transactions, US corporate tax, FATCA / withholding tax, tax compliance & reporting, global mobility services, innovation and tax technology.

The awards will be judged according to:

• Size (Not conclusive, though it does indicate what a tax team is capable of taking on)
• Innovation (Did the advice the firm gave show something more than the straightforward answer that is commonly used?)
• Complexity (Did the matter address tax issues that were out of the ordinary and what ingenuity did the firm show to solve them?)
• Impact (What impact did the advice have on the taxpayer? For example, did it help them take over their biggest rival? Issue equity and debt in a particular market for the first time? Win an unprecedented judgement in court? 

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