Services

Tax Services for the Banking and Securities Industry

In our work with leading banks and securities firms, our clients consistently describe several issues they see impacting their businesses today from a tax perspective. Addressing these issues can be a tough balancing act, but doing so may uncover potential value for your organization. We provide specialized tax knowledge that may help your organization respond to rapid changes in the market and address new and increasingly complex regulations. We can help you explore ways to reduce your tax compliance exposure and pursue potential savings by helping you understand and manage the following critical issues.

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How we can help 
We provide specialized tax knowledge that may help your organization respond to rapid changes in the market and address new and increasingly complex regulations We can help you explore ways to reduce your tax compliance exposure and pursue potential savings by helping you understand and manage the following critical issues.

Returning to profitable growth

Emerging from the economic downturn, many banking and capital markets firms have struggled to return to traditional profit levels. While in a loss or low-profit position, companies have not found much potential for tax planning beyond the use of net operating losses. But now, as more institutions find new revenue streams and areas of profitable growth, whether in the US alone or in markets around the world, opportunities for tax efficiency may arise.

Deloitte Tax can help you review each channel of potential growth under consideration for various related tax planning opportunities. Whatever your global or domestic mix of income is, we can help you explore opportunities such as:

  • Tax credits and incentives – including research and development credits, §199 software development deductions, and other US and international incentives.
  • Refinements in your organization's transfer pricing structure, methodology, and documentation that promote tax-efficient intercompany services and potentially have positive cash-flow implications.
  • Tax implications of mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, micro-banking, and other non-organic growth strategies that potentially offer new opportunities to capitalize on growth and effectively address under-producing assets.

Regulation

Regulatory compliance has grown both in importance and complexity as banking and capital markets firms respond to new provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, Basel III, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), and a host of other legislation in major markets around the world. Virtually any tax planning activity an institution considers is likely to have a regulatory implication now, so effective regulatory compliance should be an integral part of any institution’s tax planning going forward.

Deloitte can help you understand regulatory requirements in diverse areas, including the tax compliance implications of:

  • Business model transformation initiatives involving major corporate reorganization undertaken for cash flow, operational efficiency, or revenue growth purposes.
  • Tax attribute utilization involving, for example, net operating losses, credits, incentives, or accounting method changes.
  • Restructuring activities undertaken as part of a merger, acquisition, or divestiture.
  • Transfer pricing decisions, especially related to corporate headquarters charge-outs and other intercompany service charges.

Understanding and addressing impacts of regulation

Reassessing organizational scope

With increased federal and state regulation, many banking and capital markets firms are reconsidering their business structure, products, and service offerings. Common objectives are to eliminate non-core activities, focus more on areas of core competence, reduce or expand their geographic scope through organic growth or M&A, and to adopt different business models. Any of these changes may create tax and regulatory compliance issues, as well as tax-planning opportunities.

Deloitte can help you:

  • Analyze different tax scenarios based on whether you want to transition to or from being a local, regional, or global organization.
  • Consider the state and local tax implications of proposed changes.
  • Explore federal, state, and local credits and incentives that potentially align with your proposed organizational structure, including Work Opportunity Tax Credits and state and local training incentives.

Accessing quality data

To address the increasing tax compliance burden and respond to demands from business units for more sophisticated tax planning, tax departments within banking and capital markets firms often struggle with having access to accurate and complete data from across the enterprise, including customer data. It's a longstanding challenge made more difficult today by tax department resources that are stretched thin, non-integrated systems in various business units, inconsistent data sources and file types, and disparate processes and procedures use in various other departments. Further intensifying the challenge are new regulatory requirements for tax withholding and the growing risk of ad hoc regulator investigations in which detailed information is required.

From record to report, and across the people, process, technology, and data dimensions of the tax department, Deloitte can help you transform your tax department, including:

  • Understanding your current tax processes and data flow and how certain changes might facilitate tax functions to provide additional value to the business.
  • Analyzing which tax compliance, provision, planning or specialty software may support your organization's objectives and requirements.
  • Leveraging data analytics for tax and analyzing the data and information required to support these efforts.
  • Assisting in the implementation of tax portal or desktop, workflow, and document management technologies to design, build, and support repeatable and sustainable processes with improved management and oversight.
  • Exploring customized data management solutions such as tax data repositories, analytical reporting, bridging data between applications, and blueprinting and mapping tools.
  • Assistance in providing central access to required information at the right time in the process for the appropriate professionals.

The Deloitte Difference

With industry specialists in banking and capital markets, as well as tax, Deloitte approaches the issues from an integrated perspective. Our multidisciplinary teams include tax-technical specialists, technologists, and banking and capital markets industry veterans, so we bring a broad view to today’s complex problems. The result: high quality, well- thought-out services for our clients.

Deloitte’s integrated approach brings added value to our clients. Our strengths include:

  • A solid and sustained track record in tax advisory services to the banking and capital markets sector.
  • A national team of banking and capital markets industry veterans dedicated to our banking and capital markets clients.
  • The deep resources of one of the largest tax practices in the United States.
  • Tax services that range from general tax compliance support to tax-technical niche services.
  • Access to the specialized and extensive resources of Deloitte, its US subsidiaries, and the member firms of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd. and their affiliates.

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