Is FATCA Keeping You Up at Night?

Posted by Kelley Lear on Feb 14, 2012 in Compliance, Finance, Tax | 0 comments

Is FATCA Keeping You Up at Night?

Throughout the conferences I attended last year, I heard a lot of presentations and discussions tailored towards tax department challenges, financial reporting, tax reporting and compliance concerns.  Most talks were titled “Emerging Trends” in a particular area, or “Income Tax Challenges”, “Tax Accounting Concerns” and other such nomenclature.  There were also lots of questions to conference participants trying to illicit what folks’ biggest concerns were for 2011 and 2012.  As you can imagine, I definitely heard a lot of heated discussion.  Interestingly enough, quite a few folks were even savvy enough to answer the question with FATCA.  In fact, I heard several tax pros say that they have had plenty of time to plan for and implement changes to mitigate risks on the new Uncertain Tax Positions (UTP) compliance this past year, as well as on their other tax accounting challenges (good for them!).

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Tax Related Material Weaknesses – They Just Aren’t Going Away….

Posted by Kelley Lear on Jan 25, 2012 in Audit, Compliance, Process Improvement, Tax | 0 comments

Tax Related Material Weaknesses – They Just Aren’t Going Away….

Tax related material weaknesses are unfortunately still very often topics for conversation amongst tax professionals. In fact, I was just talking to a colleague who was hiring a tax risk coordinator, whose first task was going to be to conduct a thorough risk assessment within their organization. Another was discussing the lack of tax expertise on their current Board and how that is affecting them with their arguments for employing important process changes within finance and tax.

Every year I try to read the latest and greatest surveys, results and proactive thinking on tax related material weaknesses to keep abreast of what is going on out there.

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How Did I Get Stuck with this Job?

Posted by Kelley Lear on Jan 12, 2012 in Compliance, Empowerment Series, Fixed Assets, Process Improvement, Tax, Tax Planning | 0 comments

How Did I Get Stuck with this Job?

Over the years, I have been to many different tax and industry conferences across the country, and have worked with small to large global corporate tax departments…and it is interesting how many times I have heard the phrase, “I don’t know how I got stuck with this job, but I have been doing it for years”.  Typically, this is related to one aspect of their job such as exemption certificate management, 1031 exchanges, property taxes, or fixed assets management and compliance.  Sometimes however, the tax professional may even have that tax function as their full time job!  Yikes.  I am sure that is not what every budding starry-eyed college student dreams of doing while toiling away at their studies and attending college frat parties.  

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Corptax Conference Day Two Update

Posted by Kelley Lear on Nov 9, 2011 in Compliance, Empowerment Series, Process Improvement, Tax | 0 comments

Corptax Conference Day Two Update

Traci Wheeler and I are excited to provide you another update from the Corptax User’s Conference – 2011 (#corptax11)!  Day one finished up with a networking event focused around Monday Night Football.  Check out our Facebook site for some additional pictures.  As Traci is a Florida Gator fan (yes, that would be college football), and I am a die hard Patriots fan, we struggled to watch the game, but had a great time networking with some of our colleagues including Alan Marsh (KBR) and Dennis Sylvester (Dover Corp) among many others…(again check out some of the pictures we posted on Facebook).

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What Frightens You?

Posted by Kelley Lear on Oct 11, 2011 in Audit, Audit, Compliance, Process Improvement, Tax | 2 comments

What Frightens You?

I thought the title was apropos for this time of year, with “All Hallows Eve” so soon upon us…what does frighten you?  Is it scary late night ghost stories by the fire, or watching a Michael Myers movie in your dark living room with the wind whipping outside your window pane, and the distant call of a coyote in the background?  Or perhaps it is the tall, dark and bony image of a grim reaper in dark robes invading your dreams…reaching out for you with an outstretched hand and ominous groan, with you waking up in a cold sweat?  Well, for many of you tax professionals out there (a bit more practical like myself), perhaps the scariest  thing you can think of is a “Material Weakness” or a “Tax Restatement”! 

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Top 10 Reasons Why Your ERP Might Not Work Well For Tax Depreciation

Posted by Kelley Lear on Sep 27, 2011 in Compliance, Software, Tax | 4 comments

Top 10 Reasons Why Your ERP Might Not Work Well For Tax Depreciation

We have had a great number of tax professionals contacting us with specific questions about what SAP, Oracle, Peoplesoft, JD Edwards and other ERP systems can and can’t do with respect to taxes and reconciliation.   So, Traci and I thought we would help out those of you out there who have been struggling to understand whether or not their ERP system asset module might in fact provide the requirements that the tax department needs to calculate, track and comply with Federal and State filings. These top ten areas to consider have come from our clients, other Big Four consultants who customized ERP’s for tax depreciation, and years of talking to your colleagues out there.

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