Philadelphia Chapter holds Corporate Tax Management Seminar.

• Author: De Jong, Daniel B.
• Position: Chapter News

Nearly 50 members of TEI's Philadelphia Chapter met just outside the City of Brotherly Love March 21 for the chapter's annual Corporate Tax Management Seminar. After a delicious lunch featuring great Italian favorites like chicken parmesan and ravioli, chapter member Patricia O'Shea and chapter president Evan Ernest of Toll Brothers, Inc. welcomed participants to an afternoon filled with hints and tips sure to help the in-house tax executive be more effective.

The afternoon session began with a presentation on more efficiently using enterprise data in the tax function. Speakers Travis Fox and Ren Samuel from Atlas Service Link, LLC provided a lively discussion with great ideas for the TEI members in the audience. The program continued with a session on recruiting and retaining highly effective people in an in-house tax department. One tidbit that seminar participants were likely not aware of before the meeting is that 39 percent of 18 to 24 year-olds would consider leaving their jobs if they were prohibited from using social networking sites like YouTube or Facebook at work. The presenters went on to suggest employers should act quickly when deciding whether to give a candidate an offer to avoid losing good candidates to other companies.

TEI Tax Counsel Daniel B. De Jong represented the Institute's staff at the meeting, and previewed TEI's soon-to-be-completed Corporate Tax Department Survey. Not surprisingly, data from the survey show that headcount for in-house tax departments shrank during the recession, but confirmed that it has largely...