by Peter Beuvink, Tuesday, 18th February 2014

2014 Forecast

From current market activity I believe that 2014 will prove to be a significant year with many organisations making the most of the upbeat economic environment and taking the opportunity to actively pursue high quality tax candidates. Many organisations held back from adding head count last year and feedback suggests that most tax groups have been working at stretched levels throughout 2013 leading to a significant increase in stress for tax professionals, tax risk for organisations and career risk for the incumbents.
 
2014 will be a good year where we will see a number of tax professionals enhance their tax careers and work environments leading to continued activity and movement within all sectors of the tax market.

2013 In Review

2013 was an interesting year with economic activity almost coming to a halt for the few months around the Federal election. With a new Liberal Government elected and Tony Abbott installed as Prime Minister the Australian economy seems to have kicked into gear and we saw a flurry of M&A and share market listing activity leading up to Christmas.

2013 turned out to be a good year especially the last 6 months and the feedback we have had from our professional services clients suggested that most organisations experienced a substantial pick up in work.

Our corporate clients found 2013 to be another very busy year with tax groups having to work longer and harder to ensure tax risk is minimised with continued pressure to reduce head count. Fortunately most CFO’s and Board’s realise the positive impact tax has on managing the effective tax rate and reducing tax risk. They also realise that the increased tax risk of under resourcing the tax team may have a substantial negative impact on the organisation from a corporate governance and reputational perspective which then can lead to an adverse financial impact on the bottom line.