Tax Risk Assurance and Management

The PwC value proposition
Our Tax Risk Assurance and Management (TRAM) specialists understand the business and economic environment. Combined with our specialist tax knowledge and our risk-based methodology, we are able to provide a holistic risk, governance and internal control perspective to any organisation. We assist clients to navigate complexity and provide value-adding internal tax risk assurance, tax enterprise risk management, tax governance and internal control practices.

How to evolve in the world of tax risk
Our enterprise-wide tax risk assurance and management service offering is directed at all areas in the organisation that are affected by tax with specialist tax risk assurance programs in each of the areas of tax risk, including:

• Audit committees and boards – Our assistance can include training programs on the duties and responsibilities of boards and audit committees on tax risk or specialised assignments to improve audit committee effectiveness around tax matters.
• Tax and finance functions – We specialise in assisting tax and finance functions to reduce uncertainty around tax and enabling management to provide value-adding assurance on tax to both internal and external stakeholders.
• Enterprise-wide Risk Management (ERM) – Customised programs and options are available that incorporate best practice m risk methodologies and standards for the integration of tax into ERM practices or assistance programs to assist risk officers with tax related matters.
• Compliance – Customised tax compliance programs and tools are available to assist compliance officers with tax legislative compliance and the enterprise monitoring of tax compliance.
• Internal Audit – Providing assurance on tax risk across the different tax types required complex skills and tax specific expertise. Our national tax internal audit resources can assist with tax internal audit specific training needs, customised tax risk internal control testing programs, assistance with annual planning, tax risk assessment or assistance with tax internal audits.

• Strategic assurance reviews that go beyond quality assurance checklists and align to your organisational tax strategy;
• Assistance in the formulation of a tax control environment assessment;
• Assistance in the implementation of a tax combined assurance framework;
• Internal audit assurance and consulting services relating to tax risk, process and controls;
• Training from an internal audit perspective on risk, process and controls relating to tax-specific areas;
• Tax technical awareness and training;
• Formulation of tax governance frameworks, including reporting protocols;
• Augmenting your internal audit teams with specialists to support tax-specific reviews; and
• Optimising the form and content of internal audit communications.

How we can help you
Our methodology can identify your risks across the different tax types associated with your operations or business model and integrate, where applicable, the management and monitoring of these risks into existing governance and enterprise risk management structures and processes in your organisation.

This can provide you with best practice frameworks and an adequate and effective tax control environment for ultimate tax risk assurance to all relevant committees and stakeholders. Through the use of your various lines of defence in the organisation, continuous improvement of tax risk can be highlighted and escalated to ensure proactive tax risk management by the audit committee, board and management.

We follow a risk-based approach and cover all tax risks, including tax reporting risk, tax compliance risk, operational tax risk, transactional tax risk and people risk. In addressing the areas of key tax risk to the business, we leverage all technical and industry competencies available throughout PwC's Tax and Advisory Services across all tax types and tax risks.

PwC has invested substantially in enterprise risk management solutions both locally and globally. Our experience and hands-on expertise ensures that this investment can be practically applied for our clients' benefit in a number of ways from a tax-specific perspective:

• Advising on tax risk governance and risk management plans;
• Articulating tax risk appetite and tolerance;
• Linking performance and tax risk management;
• Developing effective tax risk management policies, frameworks and methodologies;
• Facilitating tax risk assessments;
• Benchmarking tax governance, tax risk and tax risk mitigation activities;
• Advising and providing solutions on tax compliance risk;
• Assessing the effectiveness of tax functions in risk management;
• Assessing current assurance providers – existence and effectiveness;
• Ensuring the combined assurance framework includes tax risk governance, assurance and reporting;
• Developing and implementing tax governance principles and structures, including tax committees;
• Integrating tax risk into the annual internal audit plan;
• Benchmarking your key tax risk controls and assessing adequacy against our best practice controls framework;
• Best practice recommendations and development of management actions in order to remediate the key risks and improve the tax control environment;
• Provision of tax technical support or specialist tax resources to your internal audit, compliance and risk management teams;
• Development or review of existing tax risk reporting and documentation to ensure proactive management of tax risk and provision of ultimate assurance;
• Assistance with independent remediation and implementation of recommendations and management actions; and
• Post merger and acquisition tax risk assurance and tax risk management structure development or integration.

The benefits of tax risk assurance and management
By providing tax risk assurance on the organisation's tax control environment and tax risk management practices, the organisation can:

• Reduce uncertainty and enable better tax planning;
• Increase tax-saving opportunities – for example by ensuring that business transactions and initiatives consider tax implications;
• Reduce compliance costs – for example by reducing the risk of errors or omission in tax reports;
• Protect the business – for example by protecting the business from the reputational damage arising from tax misstatement;
• Deliver increased value through internal assurance to the board and audit committee discharging them from their risk management, governance and internal control responsibilities;
• Be a good corporate citizen in the eyes of its stakeholders.