NEWS

Grant Thornton UK LLP continues to invest in the growth of its tax practice with the appointment of two new Partners, Nick Warth and Joe Groenen.  Nick and Joe join the firm’s Corporate and Multinational Tax Practice, which works closely with businesses to navigate the ever-changing corporate tax landscape, manage tax risk and ensure compliance with relevant tax laws and regulations.   

Nick Warth joins the growing team of Partners who specialise in transfer pricing, bringing over 15 years of experience in providing tax and transfer pricing advice to multinational corporations. Nick joins the firm from KPMG, where he led the Western Australian Transfer Pricing practice.    

Based in Cambridge, Nick will work with clients in the UK and internationally. He has a proven track record of helping clients across a range of industries, including Energy and Natural Resources, Real Estate, Life Sciences, Defence and Technology.   

Nick states, “I was attracted to the firm by the strong capability and expertise of the Transfer Pricing team, and the firm’s culture of openness and collaboration. I am looking forward to working with our talented team to further grow the firm’s Transfer Pricing practice, including broadening our connections across Grant Thornton’s International network.”  

 Joe Groenen also joins the Corporate and Multinational Tax practice as a Partner. Based in London, Joe joins from KPMG where he advised large corporate organisations on international and complex tax issues.  Previously Joe spent several years in FTSE 100 businesses as an international tax director. He has worked on some of the largest and most complex transactions, specialising in corporate entity regorganisation, cross border tax issues and supply chain and UK international tax rules such as CFC, anti-hybrid and treasury taxes.  

Joe commented, “I am very excited by the ambitious growth plans at Grant Thornton, both firmwide and in the tax practice specifically. The firm’s collaborative and collegiate culture is also something that attracted me to the role and I am looking forward to playing a part in delivering growth and supporting clients on complex international tax issues.”  

Dominic Preston, Partner and Corporate and Multinational Tax Lead at Grant Thornton UK LLP, said, “We have ambitious growth plans across our Tax business and investing in new Partners is key to this. We are delighted to welcome Nick and Joe to the team as the newest additions to the Corporate and Multinational Tax leadership team.   

“Nick brings a wealth of experience, both in terms of international connections and sector specific expertise which will contribute to our growth plans. Joe’s experience both in-house and in practice offers clients a pragmatic and commercially aware perspective, that will enable them to see how tax strategy impacts their organisation specifically. “We are excited about the opportunities that lie ahead and look forward to the positive impact that Nick and Joe will undoubtedly have on our team and the clients we support.”   

In her recent speech on investment the UK’s Chancellor Rachel Reeves solidified the importance of R&D tax relief saying, “We will maintain a world-leading capital allowances offer, with full expensing, and the £1million annual investment allowance; and we will maintain the current rates for the research and development reliefs which provide generous support for innovation. This is a vital step, to deliver certainty and support businesses to grow”. 

‘Responding to the comments made by the Chancellor, Jen Badger, R&D tax expert and co-founder of R&D tax platform, said: “We're happy to see the new government commit to keeping the current rates of R&D tax relief. While the rates are far from the whole story here, we're hoping this is a sign that the new government is committed to incentivising R&D in the UK and feel that the changes made by their predecessors have been enough to counteract the error and fraud within the schemes.” 

Taxpayers spent a total of 719 years and eight months on the phone to HMRC in the year to June 30 2024 as under-resourcing continues to cause HMRC’s customer service to deteriorate, says national accountancy group UHY Hacker Young.

The average call length to HMRC increased by 19% from the previous year, rising from 22 minutes and 41 seconds to 27 minutes and two seconds. In the three months to June 30 alone, this increased by 5% from the previous quarter.

This figure could be even higher as it only accounts for the 42% of calls received by HMRC that were handled by an advisor. The remaining calls were deflected, played a busy message or saw the customer abandon the call whilst in the queue.

Neela Chauhan, Partner at UHY Hacker Young, says that long wait times make it more difficult for individuals and business to resolve issues with HMRC. Taxpayers also run an increased risk of receiving late filing and payment penalties as they wait to speak to HMRC regarding tax problems.

Neela Chauhan says, “Too frequently, when the Government talks about increasing HMRC funding, it ends up being for tax investigations. It’s vitally important that HMRC gets extra funding to improving its very poor customer service.”

“Delays in processing customer queries also hinder HMRC’s ability to resolve tax issues. This in turn reduces the amount of tax HMRC collects. It is also in HMRC’s best interest to end the customer service crisis.”

The increase in call waiting times comes as 35,000 customers made complaints to HMRC in the past year, a 65% increase. HMRC also paid £718,000 in compensation to customers for delays over the last 12 months. 

The Office of National Statistics has published the latest tax receipts which shows a fall in fuel duty revenues and a continued steady downward annual trend of revenues since the windfall tax was introduced in 2022.

Sheena McGuinness, head of renewables and cleantech at RSM UK, said: “As the second highest indirect tax generator, it’s interesting to see fuel duty £29m down for the same 6-month period in 2023. This could be driven by a behavioural shift to hybrid and electric vehicles. With the headline rate of fuel duty frozen since 2011, we do expect the Chancellor to increase fuel duty in the budget later this month to help address the fiscal black hole, which could accelerate this trend.

“However, an alternative to fuel duty will be needed to help fill the shortfall in revenues as we all move closer to EV motoring, but if the government bring in changes in the budget, such as increasing the VAT on domestic charging points when sales of EVs are down, we could see a U-turn on the decline of fuel duties.

“The windfall tax revenues have continued a steady decline since inception, and today’s data maintained a 42% drop* between the same 12-month period.” This supports concern around the impact the energy profit levy (EPL) is having on investment. If plans to extend and increase the EPL to 38% are brought in by the government, as announced to take effect from 1 November 2024, we might see further corrosion of the tax base and a detrimental impact on future investment in the energy sector.”  

*In the 12-month period to September 2024 the total revenue was 2571, compared to 4395 for the 12-month period to September 2023.

How will the Budget impact private equity transactions involving UK businesses, particularly in the regions – and could UK businesses lose out to international competitors? The South East M&A Barometer from Top 100 law firm Cripps examines regional deal activity, particularly in the South East, and considers future outlook. 

‘Helen Garner, Partner at Cripps, comments, “Tax changes to carried interes in the UK market, potentially influencing deal volume trends in the coming quarters. Increases to employer national insurance contributions and the national minimum wage will increase costs for businesses and therefore potentially reduce valuations. It remains to be seen what effect the budget will have on deal volumes, though positive market forces could counterbalance any such impact. International private equity (and private equity-backed) acquirers won’t be affected in the same way when it comes to the changes to carried interest; while the other tax increases could affect valuations, international acquirers could be well placed to make the most of any opportunities that present themselves.” 

Thomson Reuters announced the launch of ONESOURCE with CoCounsel to customers globally. These enhanced solutions combine a new AI Product Support skill with CoCounsel, Thomson Reuters professional-grade generative AI assistant.

As multinational corporations face evolving regulatory challenges and talent shortages, ONESOURCE with CoCounsel augments professionals’ work. The Product Support skill offers customers ‘how to’ guidance, delivering assistance on complex compliance tasks by offering access to instant, relevant answers. The AI skill utilises large language models to offer an intuitive interface for natural language queries, delivering immediate answers to questions, drawn from Thomson Reuters trusted, proprietary content.

First to market is ONESOURCE Indirect Tax with CoCounsel, which enhances corporate tax management by improving efficiency in indirect tax determination, compliance and e-invoicing. This solution is now generally available to customers in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Following this launch, CoCounsel capabilities will be incorporated into ONESOURCE Direct Tax solutions in November 2024, with further tax and trade solutions arriving in early 2025. Expansion to regions including Australia is planned for next year.

“Doing business effectively as a large multinational corporation is more complex than ever. Corporate customers are looking to their technology for innovative ways to help them manage and meet the increasing volume of regulatory changes – and they need to be able to do that in an agile way,” says Ray Grove, head of Corporate Tax and Trade at Thomson Reuters. “Adding CoCounsel to ONESOURCE brings our customers a professional-grade intelligent assistant that understands tax compliance complexities and provides timely information. This will revolutionise and augment tax professionals’ work, allowing focus on strategic tasks and driving greater client value, while leveraging technology to do more with less.” 

The Future of Professionals report from Thomson Reuters showed that professionals predicted that AI will save them four hours per week in the next year, increasing to 12 hours per week within five years. Today, finding answers to complex questions in tax compliance is a manual and time-consuming process. The new AI skill transforms this process, making searches up to 200 times faster, easier, and more efficient.

Robert Newlin, Senior Director of Indirect Tax and Technology at Informatica, was among the customers that took part in the beta testing of ONESOURCE Indirect Tax with CoCounsel. “Co-Counsel gave me step-by-step instructions and references to the source documentation as expected. I found the links especially helpful because it saved me the time scouring the website and support knowledge base for source documentation. I also didn’t need to contact customer support directly,” said Newlin.