Most groups review their tax position every year. Few review the function that produces it. In two to four weeks, a senior practitioner looks at how your people, processes, data and technology, governance, sourcing and business fit hold together and where the next euro is best spent.
Tax functions now carry more rules, more data and more reporting, usually with the headcount they had three years ago. Whoever you ask for help tends to arrive with an answer that suits them: a vendor proposes software, an outsourcer proposes taking the work, a large firm proposes a team.
We build free software for in-house tax teams and can deliver work that follows the Review. That work is optional and never the Review's main focus. So the Review is sold on its own, at a fixed fee, with no sales target and it never recommends one of our tools. If one could help later, we say so separately, tell you we built it and name the alternatives. More on independence.
Typically multinationals: too big for quick fixes to keep working, not so big that every gap is solved by another hire, system or adviser. You may recognise one of these:
Each one is weighed for fit with the business, cost, risk, room to grow and readiness to change. The goal is a clear picture of what works, what holds you back and what to do next, not a maturity score.
Is there enough capacity, with the right roles and skills and clear accountability if someone leaves?
Where do steps break, get repeated or depend on a handover? What could be simpler, more standard or dropped?
Are the systems you pay for used well, is the data reliable and where would new capability earn its cost?
Who owns which decision, how risk is controlled and when issues are escalated.
What belongs in-house, in a shared service centre, with advisers or with a vendor and what should change.
Whether the plan fits what the business can fund, staff and absorb, at the time it needs to.
We interview the CFO, the Head of Tax and those doing the day-to-day work. We look at a selection of processes, systems, data flows, controls and outside spend and trace symptoms back to causes. Quick wins are kept apart from structural choices and every trade-off is written down so you can decide.
Set in the written scope.
Agreed in writing before we start.
Sold on its own. Nothing obliges you to any later phase.
The Review ends at a decision gate: stop with a usable result or go on to design and, if you want it, oversight of delivery. Implementation, ours or anyone else's, happens only if you choose it. The full engagement model.
Short documents you can act on, read in one sitting.
What is strong, what is constrained, where the risk sits and which choices matter most.
A rating on each dimension, with the evidence behind it.
A SWOT view, plus how the issues depend on one another.
What to do, ordered by impact, effort, cost, risk and how soon it delivers value.
Who decides what, in which order and with which prerequisites, over the next one to three years.
How roles, process, data, systems, sourcing and governance should look.
The person you meet does the work. No account team and no junior bench.
No tie to any vendor, outsourcer or advisory firm, no sales target and none of our own tools recommended.
Judgement from having run tax functions and built the technology they use.
Tax, finance and technology together, matched to what the organisation can carry.
Recommendations you can act on with the people and budget you have and hands-on help to carry them out if you want it.
Not an audit, an assurance engagement or an opinion on your tax positions. We file nothing for you.
A technical tax question the Review uncovers is named for you or your adviser to resolve. If we have worked on your tax function before or you use one of our tools, we say so at the start and the Review marks where it looks at our own work. You contract with TIF Synergy Ireland Limited or with Blauw Belastingen B.V. if your organisation is established in the Netherlands; the engagement letter names the company before you sign.
Fifteen minutes to see whether a Review would add value, what it should cover and who should be involved. If the timing is wrong, we'll say so.