The Benefits of Removing Canadian and US Tax Hurdles for Cross-Border Cash Pooling

Cash pooling is a powerful treasury management tool that empowers corporate growth by providing a technique to make more efficient use of liquidity, while reducing financial risks. However, both Canadian multi-nationals and foreign multi-nationals with Canadian subsidiaries are currently unable to take full advantage of cash pooling as Canadian and US tax rules present prohibitive technical and practical challenges for cash pooling, including:

Some multi-nationals avoid using cash pooling altogether to avoid these tax hurdles, while those who maintain such arrangements incur significant costs to navigate the complex tax implications.

We believe that the impact of the cash pooling tax challenges can be greatly reduced with improved tax policies and that there is a real opportunity to remove these tax hurdles by working with the Canadian government to modify the current tax rules. We will discuss how developing proposed tax policy changes and solutions can address cash pooling challenges for Canadian businesses and improve treasury management practices.

Speakers:

Ken Buttenham
Partner, International Tax Services
PwC

Ken specializes in providing outbound and inbound international tax advice to large multinational corporations. He regularly assists Canadian clients with the acquisition, structuring, reorganization and financing of their foreign affiliates.Ken has authored articles for the Federated Press, CCH and the Canadian Tax Foundation and is currently co-editor of the International Tax Planning feature of the Canadian Tax Journal. He is a regular speaker at tax conferences on international tax matters, including conferences sponsored by the Canadian Tax Foundation, the International Fiscal Association (Canadian Branch) and the Tax Executives Institute. Ken is also currently a councilor of the International Fiscal Association (Canadian Branch).  Ken holds an accounting degree from the University of Waterloo and is a Chartered Professional Accountant

Peter van Dijk
Partner,National Tax Policy Leader
PwC

Peter is the National Tax Policy Leader of PwC in Canada. Throughout his career, he has built strong relationships with tax policy and revenue authorities in many countries, including Canada, the US, the UK, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Singapore as well as with the OECD through his active participation in the BEPS initiative.

Prior to joining PwC, Peter spent over 12 years leading large tax functions for two leading Canadian financial institutions, TD Bank Group and Sun Life Financial. During his time at TD Bank Group, Peter co-led the team responsible for designing and implementing the governance and systems infrastructure to allow the bank to comply with the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) regulations. Peter also led TD Bank Group’s active participation in the consultations with the US Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service on the FATCA regulations.  Peter worked as an international tax consultant for over 15 years in the Netherlands, Luxembourg, the US and Canada for both law and accounting firms. His main technical area of expertise is international corporate tax planning, including cross border financing structures, leasing transactions, holding structures, mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property structures and tax effective supply chain management.

Peter has a Dutch and a Canadian Master of Laws degree (University of Leiden Law School and Osgoode Hall Law School, respectively) as well as a Canadian Master of Business Administration degree (Richard Ivey School of Business.

Debra Baker
National Leader US Tax Services
PwC

Debra is a partner in the Tax Services practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP working in the Toronto office. She is PwC Canada’s National US Tax Services Leader. Before relocating to Toronto in 2005, Debra spent over 8 years with PwC’s New York office. With twenty years of tax experience, Debra advises her clients on the U.S. federal and state tax consequences of mergers and acquisitions, cross-border financings and numerous other issues. In this regard, she assists her clients with developing alternative structures for acquiring, conducting and financing operations in the U.S. She also coordinates the preparation of complex federal and state tax returns, and performs reviews ensuring that items are appropriately reported and tax-saving opportunities are identified.

Debra graduated from the University of Michigan in 1993 with an AB in Economics, and from the Columbia University School of Law in 1996 with a JD. She received her LLM in Taxation from the New York University School of Law in 1999. She is a member of the New York Bar. Debra speaks regularly at seminars and conferences on various topics including structuring and financing U.S. operations, U.S. mergers and acquisitions and U.S. legislative updates.