Steps to manage overall tax risk.

• Author: Lourens, Christine M.
• Position: Tax management - Brief article

1 Clearly define and update the roles and responsibilities of tax personnel, including review and authorization roles.

2 Regularly reconcile all tax accounts to underlying data.

3 Assign a tax representative to your company's financial disclosure committee to ensure adequate consideration for tax risks.

4 Develop an annual tax Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) 404 calendar to track, create reminders and reiterate the importance of internal controls on the tax processes.

5 Prepare and retain tax documents, knowing they may be reviewed by third parties. All work papers should be self-explanatory, and any assumptions should be documented.

6 Maintain tax-basis accounting records by entity level.

7 Hire trained tax professionals in non-domestic locations to provide reliable tax accounting.

8 Create a tax technical training curriculum that avoids a material weakness due to lack of experienced personnel.

9 Assess the company's risk with other types of taxes such as international and sales tax; don't focus only on income taxes.

10 Build...