Emerging leader: Colleen C. Brown.

• Position: MEMBER NEWS

Many corporate tax professionals start out at a Big Four (or Big Eight) firm and move to an in-house corporate tax position. So why did Colleen Brown, this issue's TEI Emerging Leader, go from Ernst & Whinney to the in-house accounting side, ultimately winding up as the senior tax adviser for Barrick Gold In Salt Lake City, Utah?

"My decision to move to an in-house corporate tax professional role was driven by the desire to change my lifestyle. The in-house corporate tax arena allowed me to continue to grow as a tax professional and spend precious time raising my now-grown children, while working in an extremely positive, enjoyable work environment," Brown explains.

Brown never looked back on her decision, and she's still excited to be a tax professional today. "Right now the most exciting part of the corporate tax profession is the advancement of technology, the interactions with IRS executives as a result of the involvement with TEI, and most importantly the tax department emergence into a leadership role as an integral part of the corporate culture and global organization," she says.

With the development of new tax software and systems, tax professionals are able to collect, store, process, and analyze data faster than the previous generations of accounting and tax professionals. "The information is at our fingertips, and the tax group is able to provide effective and efficient service to strategic stakeholders," Brown says.

As far as the relationship with the IRS is concerned, Brown wears several hats. As the senior tax advisor responsible for the corporate tax IRS compliance assurance process (CAP) audit, Brown provides strategic direction on communications with the IRS audit team, ultimately developing a critical, beneficial relationship.

As TEI vice chair of the IRS Administrative Affairs Committee and the TEI vice chair of the CAP Company Subcommittee, Brown has developed relationships with IRS executives and collaborated and shared best practices with them. "We believe that the IRS CAP program has saved IRS resources when administered as intended and has the potential to do even more," she says. The taxpayers involved in CAP have noted a substantial reduction in number of open audit years, reduction in lengths of time of audit examination, reduction in number of information document requests (IDRs), reduction in number of un-agreed issues at the close of audits, reduction in the dollar amount of un-agreed issues, reduction in the...