Santa Clara Valley Chapter cosponsors First Pacific Rim Tax Institute.

• Position: Chapter News

On January 20 and 21, 2011, the first Pacific Rim Tax Institute I seminar was held in Menlo Park, California. TEI's Santa Clara Valley Chapter was a co-sponsor of the event, and a significant number of chapter members attended the two-day program. Speakers included senior government tax officials from China (Liao Tizhong, International Taxation Department), India (Virendra Singh, Director of Income Tax (International)), South Korea (Jin-oog Suh, Director International Cooperation Division), Australia (Mark Konza, Deputy Commissioner, Large Business & International), and the OECD (Caroline Silberztein). In addition, the IRS was represented by two senior officials: Michael Danilack, LB&I Deputy Commissioner (International), and Steve Musher, IRS Associate Chief Counsel (International). Other speakers includes experts in private practice with major law firms and public accounting firms, who presented and participated in the panel discussions. Most of the private sector speakers previously served in senior government positions.

The foreign government speakers were divided into two panels, which focused on the tax administration environment in the Pacific Rim. Making audits fair and efficient and streamlining appeals processes were cited as goals by government officials. Private sector advisers noted the burden of compliance, increased audit activity, and slow, expensive dispute...