MSC Professional Accountant Tax Avoidance

Question: Discuss about theMSC Professional Accountant forTax Avoidance. Answer: Idea Identification In this reflection, I have acknowledged tax avoidance, harmonization of international accounting standards as well as corporate social responsibilities from within the six themes I have studied. that I have a strong feeling that these ideas remain crucial to my work practice both in my previous work, current work as well as the work I aspire to become in the private sector. I have been engaged in various jobs throughout career and every time I have learned to appreciate the major contributions the above ideas have had in my personal and professional development. Justification Corporate Social Responsibility To begin with, I found the need for corporate social responsibility to be a major consideration that every success-oriented firm or individual should adhere to. For example, CSR is important for both the company and employees. For an employee like myself, I fin CSR significant in my previous, current and even future positions. This is because it will always boost employee engagement (Bhattacharya, Sen and Korschun 2008). With increased engagement of an employee, I will be able to have an enabling environment created for me to work happily and hence improved performance and productivity. Since a good CSR is a driver to the organization public image, I will become proud of the firm I work for and hence become fully engaged (Gond 201). I worked for happily between the years 1997 and 2000 as Medical records assistant in a public hospital due a good CSR it had in place. The Hospital was committed and dedicated to improving the community it served via corporate giving programs such as matching gifts and volunteer grants. In this manner, the Hospital attracted as well as retained valuable, engaged and hardworking employees including myself. In fact, my application to work in this Hospital in the first place was triggered by it being philanthropically minded. As can be seen, I took almost four years working for the Hospital because I was fully engaged and hence more productive on every day. I must acknowledge that I achieved my full potential working in this Hospital since I became more creative than I would have been when I was disengaged. Therefore, CSR is the first consideration I will always look at before applying for any position. Since I am aspiring to become a professional accountant or Tax advisor in the private sector, CSR will be of great for me to develop both personally and professionally. For example, with effective and working CSR, I will be guarantee a positive working environment where I can achieve my full potential, increase in creativity, personal and professional growth encouragement as well as promotion of my philanthropy. Tax Avoidance On the other hand, tax avoidance is another critical idea that I feel I need to take into consideration. People who avoid tax rips off their respective economies from achieving their full potential in terms of economic growth and development. For example, between 2000 and 2014, I worked as a customs and excise officer in the Customs and Excise Department. Here, I really got to appreciate the need to pay tax (Desai and Dharmapala 2006). I realized that many people were not paying their taxes which led to loss of billions of money that the government should have collected and shifted to the development of other sectors for the prosperity of our future generations. This idea of tax avoidance is even relevant to my current work. I am started working as a Compliance Officer in the Mauritius Revenue Authority (Income Tax and VAT inspector) in 2014 to date. From the experiences I have had in this sector, I have learned to evaluate why some people have remained hesitant to pay tax. Consequently, I have realized that there is a need for changes in the policies to ensure that every tax is comfortable paying tax. I have identified certain policy issues that have worked against the goals and objective for levying taxes. Therefore, going forward, I will take much of my time looking for the best policies that can help me come up with effective taxation policies (Dyreng, Hanlon and Maydew 2010). Because I am aspiring to become a professional accountant or Tax advisor in the private sector, tax avoidance becomes so relevant to me. Therefore, I will make sure that I start by uncovering the reasons for the persistent and increasing tax avoidance and help develop effectively policies in my future work to ensure the government gets what truly belong to her. Harmonizing International Accounting Standard Finally, harmonization of accounting standards is also a critical theme or idea that directly affect my professional development. Throughout my career and education, I have had of disparities and inefficiencies due to the lack of harmonized accounting standards. Consequently, I feel there is a need to harmonize these standards to ensure there is a conventional standards that ensure that both transactions and events have a common ground for reporting. This is because differently reporting transaction and events have had significant influence both balance sheet the income statement (Capobianco 2012). The differences make it hard to distinguish alterations in the performance from the effects emerging from the utilization of different accounting needs or requirements. I feel that harmonization will make the financial statement of corporation much more comparable with the financial statement of corporations in other nations. It is, therefore, important since firms want to operate in a business environment whereby they can trade, raise capital, list securities as well as attract various investors in diverse countries. On the other hand, investors want to seek new investment opportunities throughout the globe. In this manner, I feel accounting harmonization I will help corporations and investors, and, hence efficiency in capital markets operations. New Learning I have acknowledged the new learnings that has taken place in terms of the nature and theory of the above ideas identified besides their practical applications. I have learned of the fundamental initiatives that have been launched seeking to harmonize the accounting requirements as well as actual practices relating to company practices. The International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) on the international perspective, has undertaken the development of a set of accounting standards that deal with a range of topics that are significant internationally in various financial statements. The harmonization of financial reporting anchors the compliance with these standards. For example, these standards are presently utilized by the national standards setting agencies as the requirements of national accounting and as benchmarks in the developing of these requirements at the national level. They are also used in the company in the published financial statements besides national requirements. I have also learned of the legal framework that accounting directives provide for the annual as well as consolidated accounts of the firms in its member states. I have recognized that these directives remain consistent with less details as well as flexible compared to the international accounting standards. In this case, I have acknowledged that such flexibilities of the directives have limited the degree of harmonization that has been achieved. Nevertheless, I have acknowledged the substantial improvements in financial reporting enjoyed by the memberships of EU utilizing them for respective accounting legislations. I have learned of the ongoing collaboration among the national bodies to speak to harmonization by embracing a shared enhancement of accounting requirements. There has been cooperative efforts such as various shared projects and frequent consultations among the agencies that set accounting standards, the IASC and European Commission on shared interest matters. I have also been able to learn about the concerted efforts targeted at harmonizing the requirements of accounting. These requirements have been enhanced as well as regularly spearheaded by the actions of firms themselves especially European multinationals. These MNCs have embraced accounting practices which supersede the requirements at the national level but those meeting expectations internationally. I have learned that these steps have been done since these MNCs want increased accessibility to global capital markets. On the other hand, I have learned of the shifted attention of the CSR towards engaged employees. Throughout my participation in this course, I have realized that firms are currently recognizing the need to engage employees through CSR. Firms have currently acknowledged that one tenet of successful CSR program is getting workers alongside top management engaged. I have learned of how firms can get their staffs more engaged through CSR. Businesses have, therefore, recognized that engaged employees through CSR help get every worker of the respective teams from top to bottom fell more included to regard individuals and the planet just as much as they regard corporate profits. One of the effective ways that CSR is used to engage employees is by ensuring that the environment employee engagement becomes operational. In this case, I have come to appreciate five ways that effectively help get employees engaged and motivated. Currently, I have learned that CSR engaged employees through support from top management, a connection between environment action and the employees daily job and an internal climate which motivates and encourage workers to be engaged with the development of the project. Again having a structured that ushers a competitive aspect to the environmental initiatives as well as effective communication internally are some of additional CSR initiatives that help engage the workers. I have also learned that the current younger workers are increasingly dedicated and committed to sustainability as a lifestyle and hence only such firms that undertake investment in engagement initiatives stand to enjoy better recruitment, increased retention as well as higher morale of the employees. Therefore, firms can enhance their productivity across the whole organization when they get workers engaged with both social and environment matters that make employees feel good. Hence, I have learned that firms should stay willing to share successes as well as lessons throughout the firm, for rapid adoption of the initiatives, programs as well as fewer recurrent of mistakes. Regarding tax avoidance, I have learned of the need to adopt the sanctions for people who design, facilitate as well as market such strategies that promote the utilization of tax avoidance engagements. I have also learned the need to alter the current penalty regime operations for people whose tax returns are inaccurate due to such arrangements (Feldstein 1999). Practical Applications Context The above ideas have been practically used in the real world situations through my careers and even in other cases including past, current as well as potential. I must firmly say that I have shaped my career based on these three pillars. I am further convinced that my aspirations to become a professional accountant or Tax advisor in the private sector, is still pegged at these three ideas. For me to a competent professional accountant or tax advisor in the private sector, I will expect that the company I will be working for will be the one which values CSR to fully engage me. This will ensure that I can develop personally and professionally. Besides, I expect that my employer will be one that appreciates the need to use CSR best practices to upskill and retain its workers (Mirvis 2012). Moreover, in my previous positions, I have always evaluate my employers on their ability to engage me fully and appreciate my inputs. I have seen some firms create sustained competitive advantage base d on effectiveness of CSR used thereby attracting and retaining talented and competent workers (Chapple and Moon 2005). On the other hand, harmonizing international accounting standards will be helpful in my career development as a professional accountant. This is because by having a conventional standards, I will be able to work both locally and internationally unlike the present situation where each country has its own ways of preparing and presenting information in financial statements. As aspiring tax advisor, I will use the knowledge I have learned about tax avoidance to ensure that there are effective policies in place to bar tax avoidance (Dyreng, Hanlon and Maydew 2008). Statement of Changes I Will Enact I have acknowledged the need to enact various changes to make sure that my professional practice is enhanced. With respect to CSR, I will always ensure that I persuade my employer to adopt effective CSR to engage employees fully. Based on tax avoidance, I will have to make advocate for changes to implement the proposal that seek to raise penalty on tax avoidance and sanctions those firms that design, facilitate or market tax arrangement that help them avoid tax. In this way, I will advise the firm I will be working for as an advisor to ensure they pay their tax and to gain the public trust. Regarding the harmonization, I will start to familiarize myself with the efforts and policies that have been undertaken to support it. How I Will Set About Enacting Changes To remain a professional accountant or tax advisor, I will ensure that I support the proposal to sanction and increase penalties for those designing, facilitating and marketing tax arrangements that defeat the collection of tax. For harmonization, I will ensure that familiarize myself with the current weaknesses in the current accounting standards. Finally, I will ensure that I consider and evaluate any firm I intend to work for based on its CSR and the level of employee engagement and only accept a job offer that allow for career development. References Bhattacharya, C.B., Sen, S. and Korschun, D., 2008. Using corporate social responsibility to win the war for talent. MIT Sloan management review, 49(2). Capobianco, B., 2012. International accounting standards harmonization process: a closer look to Brazil. Chapple, W. and Moon, J., 2005. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) in asia a seven-country study of CSR web site reporting. Business society, 44(4), pp.415-441. Desai, M.A. and Dharmapala, D., 2006. Corporate tax avoidance and high-powered incentives. Journal of Financial Economics, 79(1), pp.145-179. Dyreng, S.D., Hanlon, M. and Maydew, E.L., 2008. Long-run corporate tax avoidance. The Accounting Review, 83(1), pp.61-82. Dyreng, S.D., Hanlon, M. and Maydew, E.L., 2010. The effects of executives on corporate tax avoidance. The Accounting Review, 85(4), pp.1163-1189. Feldstein, M., 1999. Tax avoidance and the deadweight loss of the income tax. Review of Economics and Statistics, 81(4), pp.674-680. Gond, J.P., El-Akremi, A., Igalens, J. and Swaen, V., 2010. Corporate social responsibility influence on employees. International Center for Corporate Social Responsibility, (54-2010). Mirvis, P., 2012. Employee engagement and CSR. California Management Review, 54(4), pp.93-117.