Checking in ahead of year-end.

• Author: Lucchesi, Janice
• Position: Tax Executives Institute's accomplishments and objectives - President's page

It's almost year-end. No, not that year-end!

The one that's focused on family and friends, sumptuous meals, storytelling, and kids home from school. Yes, it's almost holiday time, when we take stock of our progress, express thanks for our blessings and accomplishments, and hope for the same in the coming year.

It is in that spirit that I want to use this space to celebrate our success at TEI's recently concluded 71st Annual Conference, our progress on many of the Institute's 2016-17 goals, and the unwavering commitment of our members to step forward and serve as future leaders of Tax Executives Institute.

Examining Tax Transparency

The 71st Annual Conference, hosted this year in Philadelphia, explored a broad range of issues and questions linked to the theme of tax transparency, providing attendees with direct, unfiltered, and oftentimes provocative perspectives. For some, these insights may have been familiar; for others, absolute wake-up calls; and for the great majority, perhaps a little of both. TEI took a bet that the proposed Section 385 regulations would continue to be of interest to our members, and our agenda included a number of sessions focused on them. How fortuitous that the regulations were finalized in part a few days before the conference. We commend our speakers for their last-minute efforts to update their presentations to reflect the newly issued regulations. After you factor in the range of technical, policy, technology, and management-related sessions offered during the conference, I am very confident that every attendee came away with a healthy list of to-dos, follow-ups, and let-me-check-on-that's. I am pleased to note that members from fifty TEI chapters attended the conference, as did fifty-two first-time conference attendees.

In many ways, a TEI conference is actually a host of interconnected mini-conferences designed to focus on the broad range of constituencies which, taken together, make up TEI. Whether you are an emerging tax professional, a first-time attendee, chief tax officer, CAP taxpayer, soon-to-be member, or a compliance, planning, or controversy professional, a TEI conference presents timely, relevant, and actionable information for all in-house professionals. I applaud our committee chairs, speakers, and sponsors for their collective efforts and offer a special appreciation to TEI's staff for their efforts to plan, coordinate, and produce a high-quality and memorable experience for everyone. A special...