The View From the Corner Office: What Keeps Them Up at Night? It's tax reform, international issues, succession planning, growth versus risk, and dealing with multiple stakeholders and interested parties, including the media to name just a few.

• Position: Discussion

While some might envy the corporate tax vice presidents and senior counsel who occupy the corner office, there's no denying they have a difficult job, one that is subject to increasing pressures due to changes in tax laws and to increasing media and public interest in tax issues. To get an inside look at the issues these company officials face every day, we convened a roundtable of seasoned professionals, including Kafhy Fanning, vice president of worldwide taxes for Xerox Corporation; Tadd Fowler, vice president, global tax operations, for the Procter & Gamble Company; Mark Harris, senior tax counsel at the Coca-Cola Company; and Katrina Welch, vice president and tax director for Texas Instruments. Michael Levin-Epstein, Tax Executive's senior editor, moderated the roundtable in December 2017 as Congress was debating tax reform legislation.

Michael Levin-Epstein: What are the priorities as a senior tax executive?

Kathy Fanning: I think the first thing for me is just finding certainty and predictability in determining Xerox's global tax liability. It's about understanding where the business is going and looking at the operations to try to figure out how the tax laws apply. We've got a very dynamic business, so it's trying to understand how the changes to the business are going to be taxed going forward, and then also looking at the past and making sure we're closing out the old audits and getting certainty for the future.

Tadd Fowler: It's important to understand our overarching objectives as an organization, because that helps define why the priorities are what they are at P&G. First, we want to develop and manage a competitive, sustainable, and low-risk tax profile; second, we want to grow and retain our talent pool; third, we want to influence pro-growth tax policy, both here in the U.S. and abroad; and, finally, we want to work closely with the business in their efforts to drive both top-line and bottom-line growth. With these overarching objectives in mind, it's easy to understand "What are our current-year priorities as a function?" One certainly is U.S. tax reform. We are investing significant time analyzing potential implications to P&G and to influence, where possible, competitive and pro-growth tax policy. We continue to prioritize our objective of minimizing uncertainty in our global tax matters. We are doing that by focusing on getting as current as we can with tax audits around the world and continuing to build, via transparency with government stakeholders around the world, our inventory of bilateral advance pricing agreements. Additionally, as Kathy mentioned, our business continues to evolve. The business is never stagnant; they're always looking at creative ways to pursue growth. That often involves new and challenging tax issues that need to be addressed--think digital, for example. And finally, we, like many, are trying to drive productivity in the management of our tax affairs. When coupled with overall reduced department budgets, this is more important than ever, given the continued increase in external reporting requirements and audits around the world, evolving tax policy, and more complex business models raising unique and challenging tax issues.

Mark Harris: I obviously echo what both Kathy and Tadd said about staying close to the business. Clearly tax reform is a priority for all of us, as we're expecting something later this week or next week, possibly. Instead of rehashing what everyone else said, I'd add on [that] it's predictability in the sense that Kathy and Tadd both said, but it's also not having those bumps in the road, if you will, or surprises. We all know we're here to support the business, and we do the best we can and give the best advice possible, but it's also not waking up in the morning and seeing our name on the front page of the paper, or at least not seeing it on the front page for the wrong reasons. So, one of the priorities is in the context of advising the business and keeping close with the business, making sure that there's nothing that's happening that I'm going to wake up the next morning and then try to figure out how to address in the best way possible.

Katrina Welch: I would echo a lot of what's already been said. Definitely, I think we want certainty and no surprises, especially the unpleasant surprises. But it is about the business. The business has to drive. We're the tax advisors; we're recommending to management, our internal client, what the different tax consequences would be of different paths they can go down. But it still has to be the...