A message from the Chairman

I hope that everyone reading this is safe and well. We are certainly all facing challenging times.

I wanted to share our situation with regard to COVID-19 and in particular that we continue to be fully operational in the tax regulatory, compliance and operational taxes space and that we want to offer opportunities for engagement with clients who may be forced to work from home yet still have corporate obligations to meet both internally and with regulators.

Status:     Fully Operational

Our entire business model has been based on home working for our people for the last seventeen years. Much of our work is done using email, telephone and video conferencing and, as you'll read in a while, we will be launching a fully digital tax platform in April that will make many compliance and operational tax tasks independent of where you are located for work.

So, I am happy to say that you can still reach any of our subject matter experts in the UK, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Israel, Hong Kong or Taiwan by email at [email protected] if you don’t have their direct contact details. We will coordinate requests centrally and pass these on to the most relevant subject matter expert. If you contact us, please let us know the subject area and your geographical location.

Many of you may be working from home for the first time and, I can tell you from direct experience, its not as easy as it first sounds, even when you don't have a pandemic forcing all sorts of other issues into your mind. All of us here have survived and thrive in the 'work from home' environment and we would be delighted to share our tips and tactics if you'd find that useful. Please email me at [email protected] and, if there is sufficient interest, we will coordinate a couple of group video calls so we can chat. You are not alone.

Not everything is changing

At the time of writing there have been no deferrals of key deadlines in our area of knowledge. That means that deadlines remain unchanged for QI & NQI information returns reporting to IRS on forms 1042-S (including recipient copies), NQI applications to become QIs, FATCA reporting (including form 8966), CRS reporting or BEPS reporting.

DAC6 regulations are also still progressing and this too, is a global issue. The definition of an intermediary is very broad and would now include law firms, many of which are completely unprepared for identifying 'Hallmarks' in their client's transactions and unprepared for the operational impact on client-attorney privilege.

If you would like to be kept informed of potential changes to these deadlines, subscribe to our alert service - click here. So, unless things change, even though you may be working from home, your financial firm or law firm is still subject to reporting deadlines for which there is often a large amount of preparatory work and project planning.

How we can help.

While you may well be working from home yourself, that doesn’t mean that you can’t be productive and most research indicates that having something (and especially more than one thing) to do is good for mental wellbeing. As I noted above, none of the regulators has yet deferred reporting obligations under QI, FATCA or CRS (although they could do that any day). That does mean that you might have tasks to perform that will be more difficult when you're out of the office. It also means that you might need the additional help and guidance of subject matter experts. If you do have time to spare while home, its also a great opportunity to get some refresher training done.

We can arrange for consultations online via video conference call as well as more formal video based training sessions. Our online consultations can take as long as you like. Our training sessions typically take between one and two hours. We have special prices for pre-arranged consultations and online training during the COVID-19 emergency. For a full list of online training courses and consultations, please email [email protected]

We are already acting for several clients to help them individually request specific extensions to reporting deadlines, in the absence of any general deferment from regulators. If you need help with this, please get in touch.

We will also be launching our online portal the “Tax Compliance Toolkit” in April. That will bring you many more automated tax tools and information that you need in order to meet your firm’s obligations to international tax and anti tax evasion regulations. The fact that this portal is online means that you’ll be able to perform many tasks in this space from home just as easily as at the office. If you would like to subscribe to launch information and updates about the Tax Compliance Toolkit, please click here.

Please, Stay safe. Stay well and Stay in (virtual) touch.

Regards

Ross McGill, Chairman