EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients.
How EY can help
-
Our private client tax services team can help you maintain your business and personal goals while achieving full reporting compliance. Learn more.
Read more
“Private businesses are telling us that, for tax and finance functions in particular, this is all creating a level of disruption and complexity that’s hard to manage effectively,” says Ryan Burke, Global EY Private Leader. “Many are struggling to marshal the required skillsets and platforms that the future demands.”
As a result, many private businesses are examining how they can meet these disparate challenges that are pulling their tax and finance functions in multiple directions.
According to the survey, a third of respondents working for private businesses said being an “enabler for value and competitive advantage” was their highest priority for the tax department’s relationship with their enterprise’s growth ambitions. That was 12 percentage points higher than “social responsibility” and an “obligation and risk to be managed,” which polled at 21% each as the top choice for private companies.
Perhaps because so many private companies see tax operations effectiveness as providing a competitive advantage and because 81% of private companies “agree” or “strongly agree” that their boards and C-suite view the tax function as a strategic partner for the business, some 90% of private businesses are considering co-sourcing some tax functions to help fulfill those expectations.
“Tax departments today are expected to be engaged and bring insights to the business,” says Desmond Teo, Asia Pacific EY Private Tax Leader. “This is harder than ever with so many demands; so the more we can do to encourage tax professionals to really focus on how tax affects the enterprise instead of performing repetitive and rudimentary tasks, the more value they will have.”
To be sure, for private enterprises, these insights help the business deliver on unique characteristics and goals, including owners’ purpose and legacies. For instance, while just 21% of private businesses ranked “social responsibility” as their top priority for the relationship between tax and their business growth ambitions, some 29% ranked it second; that 50% combined total actually exceeded the 49% who ranked “value and competitive advantage” as their No. 1 and 2 choices for that relationship.