Insurance Corporate Tax (ICT)
When a leading US insurance company was considering restructuring its operations in the UK, PwC's international reach and reputation made the firm the natural choice of adviser on both sides of the Atlantic.
Having set up a team of experts from its US and UK tax practices, PwC set about looking at the various ways the insurer could refinance and reorganise its business. As with any cross-border project, there were a number of issues to be considered over and above the usual tax questions. In this case, the presence of US and UK transfer pricing legislation meant that the team needed to take extra care not to push up the company's tax charge.
The project is running to a six-month deadline which coincides with the company's June AGM - the company is committed to presenting its completed proposal to the shareholders on that date. With a couple of months to go, the focus is on pulling together the information and briefing notes that will act as the basis for the US lawyers' draft agreements.
Laurence, a newly-qualified member of the UK ICT team, is finding the project a great learning experience. "Day-to-day I've been working with my Manager to draft briefing notes for the rest of the team and sitting in on conference calls, things like that," he said. "At this stage of the project, I'm also putting together a list of actions that the lawyers in the US will need before they can start drawing up the various agreements. It's the first time I've been part of an international team and being here at the start means I'll get to see the whole process develop."
Forensic Services
Forensic accounting is an area of our work that's shrouded in secrecy. In fact, confidentiality is such a vital part of the team's work that we can't give you a detailed case study about a particular client - instead, we can give you an overview of the kind of projects the team gets involved in.
Whenever one of our clients is facing a high profile investigation, claim or dispute, there's a good chance they'll call in our Forensic Services experts for advice. The kind of issues the team deals with could be anything from high-level fraud and regulatory investigations to substantial insurance claims and intellectual property disputes. It's fair to say that reputations and even entire companies are often at stake. Whatever the issue on the table, our team has the latest forensic technology and has the experience to offer advice and support to clients throughout Europe.
Nick, a newly qualified Executive on the team, says it's an exacting area of PwC's work. "Information is what makes the forensic process tick - cases can turn on the smallest detail so you'll often find me poring over reports and analysing data, financial and otherwise. The research I do and the reports I prepare on my findings enable the team as a whole to build up a picture of what's gone on. We work closely with the client too, as it's vital to make sure our findings are consistent with their understanding of the situation. Where they don't, that's usually why the problem arose in the first place."
Assurance
For any company, the audit is a yearly occurrence that has to be fitted in around the normal day-to-day issues of running a business. Although a fact of business life, this can lead to problems - the audit process is complex and demands a high level of resources for the few months while it's taking place.
In a recent audit, the main challenge was to ensure that an automotive client which had experienced problems the previous year was able to work with the PwC team to make it a trouble-free audit this time around.
The key issue that needed to be smoothed out was the supply of information by the client to PwC. Deadlines had been missed previously so the team looked carefully at time management and gave the client clear instructions as to what information was needed and when.
Hanna, a newly-qualified Executive, was responsible for liasing with the client throughout. "I had to speak to the client about the problems we'd had in the past and were still having," she remembered. "After agreeing set deadlines, it was just as important to make sure members of our team focused their work in the right areas so time was not wasted." With these new guidelines in place, issues that did arise could be tackled along the way and the audit as a whole was completed in line with the team's timetable.
