Trang Tran Assurance Financial Services – Digital Accelerator For the Dutch version, click here. What exactly do you do at PwC? Besides being an accountant in the Financial Services Business Unit, I am also a Digital Accelerator where I help innovate and digitize the Assurance practice. What does your working day look like? In the morning I start up with the Digital Associates where we discuss the status of the projects and brainstorm where necessary on how we are going to build the digital solutions. We do this by drawing everything out on a jam board and constantly adjusting where necessary. Then the Associates get to work and I have meetings with audit teams to see where I can support them in terms of automating work. I then write out a digital approach per digital solution and guide the Digital Associates with building the digital solutions. When the Digital Associates are done building, I review the digital solutions to ensure we are meeting quality standards and audit guidelines where necessary. Then I schedule meetings with the audit team to hand over the digital solution. There are also major projects in between that I am also involved in. In addition to coming up with new tools that can help the practice, I also help roll out existing tools throughout the practice. And, of course, I also do regular audit work. Depending on the period we are in, I also spend several hours a day on audit work. During busy season then I do work on audits the whole period. Trang Tran | Senior Associate | Digital Accelerator What do you like about your work? That I can let my creative juices flow and that the possibilities are endless. And all within a field where everything seems so rigid. As a Digital Accelerator you are completely let loose within your own audit practice to rethink everything and see how we as accountants can do things differently and thus save time and at the same time increase quality and deliver more added value to the client and society. Tell us something about the Digital Accelerator program. What opportunities do you get here? And how do you apply these in your daily work? After an intensive but fun training where you learn technical skills such as basic coding and data analysis and visualization, you will help the audit teams to digitize. During your training you will also receive soft skills training where you will learn how to ”sell” change and the importance of being agile. These soft skills are very important if you want to bring about change within an audit firm. At my own clients, I try to automate all manual and repetitive work by deploying software that enables automation or by building robots, for example. This leaves more time for the really interesting topics such as fraud, continuity, estimating items and other topics that you as an accountant also want to spend your time on. What role do you think innovation/new technology plays within accountancy? Accountancy is changing and it is only a matter of time before much of our work is fully automated. This does not mean that we as accountants are no longer needed but this means that we as accountants are going to need a different skill-set and add value in a different way. Because of the amount of data that our clients have available today, we as accountants will have to learn how to analyze the data and how we can thereby replace our traditional auditing work by, for example, performing integral data analysis and zooming in on the outliers. This also means that we as accountants will only add more value in the future because by building smart algorithms into our data analyses, for example, we can detect fraud faster and through predictive analytics we can serve clients better. In addition, I also believe that we will move more towards continuous auditing which will allow accountants to actually add value at any time of the day and not just after the financial year. And perhaps soon we will all work on the blockchain and we as accountants will no longer validate the transactions but the blockchain itself. What role do you think innovation/new technology plays within PwC? Innovation is very high on the agenda at PwC and PwC invests a lot in upskilling its people. PwC also invests an awful lot in developing new tooling and making existing tools available. Often people think that innovation is not possible at a Big 4, but precisely because PwC is not a startup and there are sufficient resources available, we can innovate and make the impossible, possible.- Tell us something about your development/coaching/mentoring The way I develop myself is by making mistakes. The skills I need to build digital solutions, I teach myself by just doing it and gradually learning from my mistakes. And the moment I don’t know where to start or if I get stuck then google is my best friend. Google, Youtube tutorials, forums and asking others to think with me. These are the ways to learn the fastest. However, PwC does have enough training courses so that you have at least the basic skills. These are online courses through Udacity and internal courses where you are adequately guided in developing these new skills. “I can let my creative juices flow and the possibilities are endless.” What would you like to say to your future colleagues? We are the future and we are ultimately going to make a difference for generations to come. The world is changing, our clients are changing, and therefore we as a profession need to change as well. The technological revolution is happening right now at this very moment and that’s why it’s just incredibly cool to become part of this change right now.
Tax Avoidance through The Netherlands
For the Dutch version, click here At the beginning of this year, the NOS ran a large headline: “Tax evasion by Google netted the Netherlands more than 25 million euros” [1]. Although at first glance this seems to be a good windfall for the Dutch treasury, it gradually becomes clear that these are only the small crumbs that the Netherlands gets out of the many billions of euros that Google is funneling through our country. Google is not the only globally known company to use clever tricks to avoid tax (note: different from criminal tax evasion). Starbucks, U2 and The Rolling Stones, too, have given up their business addresses in the Netherlands in order to channel their earnings to countries where there is hardly any profit tax. Shell Corporations The profits of multinationals are thus not deposited and reported in the Netherlands, but rather channelled through. The Netherlands does not have an exceptionally low profit tax rate: about 25 percent for everything above the limit of €245,000 in 2021. This, of course, is where you end up as a multinational very quickly. What was so favorable about the tax laws in our country until 2021 is that no withholding tax was levied on royalties. These are costs that a company can charge for the use of intangible assets, such as brand names, recipes, patents, etc. This meant that a company registered in the Netherlands that received royalties from a foreign company did not have to pay tax on them. There was also an arrangement that ensured that Dutch companies that paid royalties to foreign companies, did not have to pay tax on this either. [2] The consequence of all these favorable tax rules leaves pretty little to the imagination. It is therefore apparently easy to set up a tax-evasive construction. Take the fictitious company, Bami B.V., based in Tilburg. Bami produces deep-fried snacks and sells them in the Netherlands. In principle, the company should pay 25% of its profit as corporation tax at the end of each year. Now the owner of Bami has also set up a shell company in Bermuda, Nasi LLC. This stand-alone company houses the recipes for the fry snacks. Then Bami pays a fixed amount of royalties to Nasi, for using the recipes. As previously mentioned, royalties to and from the Netherlands were untaxed until 2021. This, combined with the absence of any corporate or profit tax in Bermuda, makes for an ideal construction to pay as little tax as possible. The Netherlands probably has some 14,000 shell corporations. Many of these are located in office buildings on Amsterdam’s Zuidas, where they are managed by accountants and tax consultants. Often these are just empty offices with a houseplant and a coffee machine, to give the idea that the building is actually in use. In practice, there are at most a handful of meetings held by the management of the parent companies. Again, this only happens because it is mandatory, and these directors and executives must be able to prove that meetings were held in the Netherlands, often with the receipt of lunch as proof. [3] “This is how shell companies are cleverly used, they are created purely to send out a hefty bill for royalties a few times a year” Moderna Switzerland GmbH One of the most recent examples of tax avoidance has recently surfaced: Moderna. The company that produced one of the most widely used Covid vaccines created a new subsidiary in Switzerland: Moderna Switzerland GmbH. This subsidiary would have handled payments for all of Moderna’s European vaccine orders. In Switzerland, the average corporate tax rate is about 15%. Also, the patents for the Moderna vaccine are stashed in a subsidiary registered in the US state of Delaware. This is an important link in their tax structure, especially among Americans, because in Delaware no tax is levied on income from intangible assets, such as patents. This is how ‘shell’ companies are cleverly used, and created purely to send out a hefty bill for royalties a few times a year so that the profits from these can then be deposited as favorably as possible. [4] Solutions Tax evasion by companies is of course no great secret. Meanwhile, the governments of all the countries that are missing out on billions in income have also woken up, and plans are being worked on to clamp down on shoddy tax structures. For example, withholding tax on royalties has been introduced in the Netherlands since 2021 for countries that pay these fees to entities in so-called “tax havens. These havens refer to countries where profit and corporate taxes are 9% or less. Some examples are Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and Samoa. [5] Another initiative to prevent tax avoidance is one of the agreements of the G7, which since this year have agreed that companies, regardless of their location, must pay at least 15% tax on their profits [6]. This may help level the playing field to some extent, by curbing the imposition of low taxes. Of course, there will never be a universal solution against tax avoidance. Accountants and tax specialists work to find loopholes to ensure that a company can put as much money as possible in favorable locations. And paying a lot of tax just doesn’t fit into that picture.
Working at PwC
For the Dutch version, click here Who am I? My name is Sam Tushuizen, I am 23 years old and I live in Tilburg. Ever since I had management & organization at secondary school, I already knew: I want to become an accountant. By the time I had to choose a study, I considered going to Nyenrode immediately after high school and starting to work. In the end, I didn’t choose this and started my bachelor’s degree in Business Economics at Tilburg University in 2015. The accountancy courses we received confirmed my image that I would like to go into auditing. That is why I subsequently started to follow the master Accountancy, also at Tilburg University. I postponed the master’s thesis for six months, so I had relatively few lectures during the third and fourth block. I thought it would be a good idea to gain some work experience during my master’s. That’s when I first got in touch with my employer. That’s when I first came into contact with PwC, where I did a three-month internship. After the summer, I did another thesis internship, after which I officially started as an Associate at PwC in February 2020. Working at PwC PwC is one of the Big4 accountancy firms with 12 offices in the Netherlands. I’m in the Zuid business unit, which includes the Breda, Eindhoven and Maastricht offices. We audit a wide range of clients. They include large listed companies, educational institutions, manufacturing companies, family businesses and municipalities. When you start at PwC, you will initially be assigned the broadest possible client portfolio. This will give you the opportunity to gain experience with different types of clients first, and then to make a good choice as to which clients you like and which you don’t. “All my colleagues, from senior associate to manager and partner, are always there to coach you and help you if you don’t understand something and start picking up new posts.” One of the reasons I applied for a job at PwC was the fact that it is a Big4 firm. I think it’s important to develop within the accountancy profession at the start of your career. PwC fits in here by offering a diverse range of clients. By having different types of clients, the work remains diverse and challenging. In addition, as an Associate you will spend the first two years of your career in the Associate Academy, PwC’s internal training programme. Here you receive training on how to carry out certain tasks, hold discussions with clients, but also how to give feedback to your team members. The decisive factor was the atmosphere and the contact with the PwC employees that I experienced during the in-house day at A&F. During my master’s I took part in an in-house day which gave me the opportunity to experience what it’s like to be a PwC employee at a client’s location and to carry out the audit together with the team. Not only the work appealed to me, but also the atmosphere during the day. I still experience this when I’m working with the team at the client’s premises, in the office, or even virtually now: there’s always room for a chat. I can therefore recommend everyone to attend such a day. For me, it was the best way to experience what it’s like to work at PwC. My future at PwC It’s been almost 1.5 years since I started at PwC and I’m still learning something new every day. In the coming years, I want to continue to focus on my development as an accountant. Last September, I started the theoretical course (post-master accountancy) at Tilburg University to obtain my RA title. After this summer I will also start with the practical training, after which I hope to have my RA title in three years time. In the meantime I want to continue to challenge myself within PwC and the client portfolio that I have. PwC is a great place to work and develop yourself. All my colleagues, from senior associate to manager and partner, are always there to coach you and help you if you don’t understand something and start picking up new posts. Partly because of this, I’m still happy with my choice to work at PwC, and then I haven’t even experienced the free bibos, ski trip and Christmas drinks yet, because of Corona. Your future at PwC If you would like to know more about working at PwC, you can always send me a message via LinkedIn or email our recruiter Anil Kaplan (anil.kaplan@pwc.com).
Working at Van Oers
For the Dutch version, click here Who am I? Let me briefly introduce myself. My name is Edward van Dijk. I am 29 years old and live in Breda. In 2009 I chose to study Business Economics at Tilburg University. I found the versatility of the program an advantage, as it allowed me to choose many different directions. In the subsequent master’s, I decided to study Accountancy, but I also wanted to gain practical experience. I therefore chose to follow the master and post-master program at Nyenrode Business University. I hope to complete the final phase of the post-master program very soon! The packed lecture halls with often hundreds of fellow students remain to be a vivid memory for me. As will the 8-week study blocks, which in three years covered every imaginable subject within economics, business economics, and fiscal economics. This gave me a broad theoretical basis. Of course, I also found time for fun during my student years. My best memory of my time in Tilburg is the study trip to Brazil with 20 fellow students, organized by Asset. As one of the lucky ones, I had the opportunity to go to Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo. These super cities made a big impression on me. I believe the study tour is still being organized and I highly recommend it! Van Oers Then along came van Oers. In mid 2019 I decided to transfer to the audit department of Van Oers in Breda. This is a well-known accounting firm in West Brabant, consisting of five offices. I felt at home immediately. Van Oers has a very professional look and feel, along with a personal approach. I immediately liked the approach to professionalism and the investment in the growth of (young) professionals, the most important parts of the audit field. In addition, the client portfolio really appealed to me. Van Oers serves both SME clients as well as large for-profit companies in a wide range of sectors, which is also nicely explained on the website. For my own development, I was looking for diversity in my client portfolio. In consultation with Van Oers I was offered diversity, which provides me with many challenges in my daily work. Working at Van Oers Van Oers currently has over 380 employees working in the various disciplines that Van Oers offers. In my department, I work with approximately 65 colleagues, a number that is still growing. In the field of Auditing & Assurance, our department is one of the largest in the region. The work as an auditor mainly consists of auditing financial statements of companies subject to audit. “Due to the good organization and the growth I am experiencing in my own development, I am still satisfied with the choice I made.” To make it concrete, it is best to explain how a regular day for me looks like. As a Senior Staff member, I manage the team members and report to the manager of the assignment. The assignments vary. I sometimes work with three colleagues together on a project, but I also have assignments with 8 colleagues. The work itself is diverse but can be roughly divided into interim and balance sheet audits. During the interim audits in autumn, we focus mainly on gaining insight into the company and testing the internal controls. During the balance sheet audit, we anticipate on the identified risk factors, by analyzing the figures and verifying the information presented in the financial statements. My own role consists of going over the tasks for each item or part of the audit with a Staff member, reviewing the work performed, performing the most complex tasks, and communicating the status and findings to the manager. The project is thus carried out together, in which each team member has his own share. Van Oers believes that involvement is extremely important. Informal activities are always announced with great enthusiasm. An example of a fun activity is the annual employee event, The Voice, which is a popular gathering among all Van Oers employees. In addition, my own Audit department often organizes activities for the entire team, such as a quiz or a (digital) escape room. Because Van Oers also considers quality to be extremely important, I often see my colleagues at seminars. In short, we work very hard. Due to the good organization and the growth I am experiencing in my own development, I am still satisfied with the choice I made. Corona I can’t help not to mention the COVID-19 crisis time at the time of writing this interview. I work mainly remotely, that is, at home at the dinner table. Van Oers has provided me with all the tools to work effectively remotely. This has been effortless. Daily phone calls, but especially switching with colleagues and customers via Microsoft Teams is my fixed daily rhythm. Because I currently work, eat and sit in one place for almost the entire working day, I almost always exercise for an hour after work. This, in turn, is a big advantage: no more travel time and therefore more flexibility! My advice I have always had a good sense of numbers. Economics, management & organization, and math were always my favorite subjects in high school. I must admit that I had a hard time making a choice in my studies. The choice for a somewhat broader preliminary education was for me a great outcome to discover several directions in the financial world. I soon discovered that I was most interested in the “behavior” of organizations. Why do organizations, and especially the people in these organizations, make the choices that lead to success? A company is more than numbers! The accountancy branch fits in nicely with this! My advice: First of all, I recommend that you enjoy your student life. Cliché, but this period flies by. Before you start your career, my advice is to get a better understanding of where your interests and ambitions lie. What is the ideal job for you and
Working at EY
For the Dutch version, click here What is it like to start working at an accountancy firm in a time in which everything is online and working from home is the standard? In this article, Daniek Veldhuis will tell about her experience as a first-year staff member at EY. Who am I? To begin, I will shortly tell something about myself. My name is Daniek Veldhuis, I am 22 years old and I live in Tilburg. After obtaining my VWO diploma in 2015, I decided to make the move to the student city Tilburg. From 2015 to 2018, I studied Business Economics and after completing this bachelor, I continued with the master Accountancy at Tilburg University. Next to my studies, I was a board member at the study association Asset | Accounting & Finance. As such, I got the change to organize network events together with my fellow board- and committee members. These network events were organized for, among others, several accountancy firms,. Due to this, I was able to get a good idea of the various Big-4 offices and eventually make an informed choice to apply for a job at EY. Why EY? You might wonder which factors contributed to my choice for EY. First of all, I quickly decided for myself that I wanted to start at one of the Big-4 offices. For the many possibilities, but also the international aspect appealed to me. Another factor that was important to me was a good match with my colleagues. The actual work at the different accountancy firms does not differ much, which makes the social aspect even more meaningful. Working at EY During my master, I first did a thesis internship at EY in Eindhoven. During such an internship, you will have the opportunity to write your thesis at the office. As such, you can already experience the ins and outs and the atmosphere on a normal working day at the office. My thesis internship started in February, but unfortunately we quickly had to work from home due to the COVID-19 crisis. Fortunately, fear that this would cause less contact with colleagues was not necessary. At the beginning, all thesis interns were assigned a buddy group and mentor and we had a weekly contact moment with this buddy group during the duration of the internship.. Despite the special circumstances, I enjoyed this time so much that I started at EY Eindhoven as a Staff Audit last September. The first two weeks consisted of an introduction period with all the other starters from the same region in which we covered different cases to prepare us for the work to come, but also several informal activities were organized to create a good relationship with my fellow starters. “The activities as a Staff Audit differ throughout the year, from testing internal controls to analyzing the figures in the annual report.” After the introduction weeks, it was time to really get to work. A big step, but you will be guided in this process as well as possible and in the case of any questions, you can always contact your personally assigned coach.. None of my colleagues will have exactly the same working day. This mainly depends on everyone’s client package. My client package consists of different types of clients, including one large client from the United States that I have been working on for most of the time so far. The activities as a Staff Audit differ throughout the year, from testing internal controls to analyzing the figures in the annual report. You work on this together with the team, at the EY office or at the clients site. This year, it has been different and I have spent most of the year working from home. This is very different from what I had imagined my first year at EY to be, but we all try to make the best of it. Where you would normally meet in a meeting room with your senior to discuss something, this is now all done via Teams. Furthermore, we now have virtual work sessions to re-create the feeling of a normal working environment. All team members will join the session, so we can also get an idea of what the other team members are working on. Besides all the hard work, there is, of course, also time for other fun activities. Unfortunately, this year, events like the Christmas drink or ski trip could not take place, but online activities are organized as much as possible, with the entire region or within the team you are working with that week. For example, two colleagues of mine organized a Carnival pub quiz for the entire team a few weeks ago. In short, my first year has been an eventful year so far and different than expected, but precisely because of the way EY has approach this situation, I am still happy with the choice I made.
Working together with the FIOD: what is the role of the accountant in beating corruption?
For the Dutch version, click here How corrupt are the Netherlands? Transparency International addresses this question annually and publishes the Transparency International corruption index, based on interviews with experts and business people in relevant countries. In the most recent evaluation the Netherlands scores reasonably well, with an eighth place in the top ten least corrupt countries [1]. Nevertheless, we in the Netherlands must remain critical. Although corruption has been largely eradicated in our own country, Dutch companies are repeatedly guilty of bribery abroad. The OECD Working Group on Bribery, the organization responsible for monitoring and reporting on the anti-corruption efforts of participating countries, concludes that companies or individuals in the Netherlands rarely go to court and the number of foreign bribery cases that are concluded with sanctions is relatively low [2]. Furthermore, the Netherlands lacks a legal framework for self-reporting, making it difficult for companies to assess the consequences of reporting internal corruption practices, leading to uncertainty and reluctance. However, the OECD Working Group on Bribery also mentions positive developments in the fight against corruption. One of these is the establishment of the Anti-Corruption Center (ACC) in 2016, a unit within the Fiscal Intelligence and Investigation Service (FIOD) aimed at combating corruption in the form of official and non-official bribery abroad and non-official bribery in the Netherlands. In addition to conducting corruption investigations, the ACC focuses on sharing knowledge in the area of corruption, entering into cooperation with various parties and professional groups, and increasing awareness of corruption and identifying it by means of ‘Awareness-raising-activities’. I spoke with Desiree van der Hoorn, chartered accountant and project leader at ACC, about how this unit operates, why they could really use the help of accountants in reporting signals of corruption, and the pilot project between the NBA, FIOD, and accountants. How does reporting of corruption signals work? The ACC starts a corruption investigation after receiving one or more signals, coming from different sources. These signals can come from the other government departments such as the tax authorities, revelations from whistleblowers in the media, such as the Panama papers and Luanda leaks, but also from reports by accountants. Accountants are part of the so-called gatekeepers, public and private organizations that, on the basis of the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Prevention) Act (Wet ter voorkoming van witwassen en financieren van terrorisme, Wwft), are legally obliged to report unusual transactions that they identify to the Financial Intelligence Unit-Nederland (FIU-Nederland). Other examples of gatekeepers are institutions such as banks, trust offices and payment service providers, but also lawyers, appraisers and civil-law notaries. For accountants, both subjective and objective indicators have been developed for reporting unusual transactions. For example, a transaction of €10,000 or more paid in cash, checks, or prepaid cards must be reported at all times. After reporting the unusual transaction, FIU-the Netherlands can declare the transaction suspicious, after which it becomes available to the investigative, intelligence and security services. Reports by accountants A total of 2,462,973 unusual transactions were reported to FIU by the various institutions and professional groups in 2019, of which 3,424 were reported by accountants [3]. This represents a small portion of the total number of reports, although it should be noted that payment service providers, mostly through the objective indicators made over 1.9 million reports. Despite the small number, these reports are very valuable to FIU-Netherlands and FIOD/ACC, according to van der Hoorn. “An accountant is much closer to a company and has a good idea of what happens within a company, what is usual, but also what is unusual. In addition, before the accountant makes a report, some things are done. At large accounting firms, several consultations often take place prior to a report. This means that several experts have already had a look at the case and the transaction has been analyzed in detail. As a result, the reports that are made are often of high quality”. “If you look at the relationship with your client, then it is logical that you want to keep it good. But ‘keep it good’ to me would also mean good in terms of content, so you also want a client to act with integrity and that you, as an accountant, can put him on that integrity track, insofar as he is not already on it.” The considerations of reporting Despite this, accountants remain reluctant to report signs of corruption and the investigative services are seen more as the enemy than as a party to cooperate with. How can this be? In addition to his social responsibility in judging the truthfulness of the financial statements, the accountant also has a direct responsibility to the client. This combination can create a conflict of interest that hinders reporting. However, this does not outweigh the fact that failing to report an unusual transaction or reporting it too late is punishable by law. It can be punishable by substantial fines [4, 5], but an accountant can also be held liable under criminal or disciplinary law. In addition, van der Hoorn believes that if an accountant acts correctly, he will not easily find himself in a situation with major dilemmas or risks. “Despite the fact that, as an accountant, you are not allowed to tell your client that you have reported an unusual transaction to FIU-Netherlands, you do want to discuss the problem you have found with the client. Together with the client you want to resolve the issue, prevent it from happening again in the future, and possibly discuss the extent to which it makes sense to deal with the past and actively report the bribery yourself, so-called self-reporting. If you’re in such an open relationship with your client, you don’t actually get to a point where the risk is effectuated at all. “ In addition, conflicts of interest are often mentioned as a possible reason for not reporting an unusual transaction, but according to van der Hoorn, an accountant acting in the interests of his client would want to raise precisely possible corruption
