Can you give specific examples of how TaxRM processes can identify opportunities associated with an organization’s strategy, operations and processes?
Let’s suppose an organization has a documented strategy stating that it wants to become a market leader in its industry. In order to achieve this goal, the organization must grow organically or acquire outside firms to increase its market share.
In some instances, the purchase of an external firm may provide significant tax benefits. For instance, if the acquisition is optimally structured from a tax standpoint, the target’s existing tax loss carry forwards may be preserved within the entity post acquisition. TaxRM processes can also help guide organizational managers in their operational and process-level decision-making. For example, if an organization requires new machinery for manufacturing processes, leasing equipment may provide significant tax benefits when compared with capital expenditures associated with the purchase of a machine. However, the lease versus buy decision will hinge on numerous business-specific factors; it is not always optimal to lease equipment.
What are some prevalent risks that TaxRM processes can mitigate?
Business transactions, including asset acquisitions and divestitures, often present significant tax risks and opportunities for businesses. Involvement of the tax function or an external tax adviser in examining these transactions can yield significant benefits to the organization and potentially improve its profitability. This involvement might also save the business significant costs by ensuring a transaction is structured optimally from a tax standpoint.
For example, in some instances, business owners may desire to change the classification of their organization. If an organization that is taxable as a corporation elects to be classified as a partnership, this election will generally be treated as a full liquidation of the existing corporation and a subsequent formation of a new partnership. This classification change could thus cause the organization to realize harmful tax consequences, both immediately and in the future.
Involvement of the tax function or an external tax adviser in such decision-making can help managers make decisions in the best interests of the organization and maximize the after-tax cash flows of the business.
How can an organization achieve maximum benefits from a TaxRM process?
Again, in order to be most effective, a TaxRM process should be integrated into an organization’s ERM process. In this manner, tax risks can be evaluated simultaneously with other business risks, and the tax benefits and costs of an organization’s strategy, operations and processes can be regularly evaluated. Integrating TaxRM into the organization’s ERM process also signals to employees the importance the organization has placed on TaxRM. If employees can tangibly discern the organization’s emphasis on TaxRM, it is likely that they themselves will place greater emphasis on examining tax risks in their decision-making processes.
Walter M. McGrail, JD, CPA, is a senior manager at Cendrowski Selecky PC. Reach him at (248) 540-5760 or [email protected], or visit www.cendsel.com.
