In conversation with: Graham Partner

Transcript

Graham Partner: I'm Graham Partner. I'm a Director on our Tax Reporting and Strategy team and I work with companies to help set up their ERP and other tax technology to deliver tax requirements for their business.

I think that the biggest challenge in operationalising Pillar 2 will be the availability of the data required to do the calculations. Pillar 2 calculations are based on existing financial data which is cut up or aggregated in a different way to normal. We often describe this as needing bottom up levels of granularity but fully loaded with top side and top level adjustments. Mapping out the sources of the data and thinking about who you're going to need help from in the organisation is something that should be done early because it may take time to get the support you need.

We would suggest you start with an initial impact assessment that you can use to articulate the issues and potential consequences with internal and external stakeholders. It doesn't have to be a big exercise and could just be a briefing paper you can share with people in the organisation.

Some of the key elements might be high level comments on the background to Pillar 2, initial estimates of the incremental cash taxes for key jurisdictions, resource requirements for additional compliance activities and finally comments on how easy it will be to pull the data from ERP and tax accounting systems.

Bringing that altogether for a higher level plan for the next steps and putting it down on paper will be a great start to your project.

My 3 key takeaways would be firstly start early, it'll take longer than you think. Secondly, define the roles in your team and who will be covering which areas and lastly develop a plan and socialise that amongst your stakeholders.

Please get in touch if you'd like to discuss how we can support your organisation further with Pillar 2.