On May 21st, BOKS International hosted the second Virtual Members’ Meeting of 2021. We had more than 50 delegates in attendance and early feedback suggests the event was a great success. The networking sessions were highly productive, as member connections were made and strengthened, while the keynote sessions were very well-received.

The event was structured to maximise networking opportunities for attendees via two sets of roundtable discussions utilising breakout rooms on either side of concurrent keynote presentations from Connson Locke, professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Amanda Garner, principle at The Growth Partnership.

Professor Connson Locke – Developing Your Power and Influence

Professor Locke provided answers to the questions, where does power come from? How can we influence people who have more power than we do and convince them to listen to us? Professor Locke guided us through the latest research on leadership, power and nonverbal communication, and the signals that contribute to perceptions of charisma and confidence, as well as the challenges that people – especially women – face in leadership positions. Drawing on material from her new book, Making Your Voice Heard, Professor Locke provided practical tips for how to build our bases of power, influence others, and make our voice heard.

Amanda Garner – Get Your NET-Work Working

In this session, Amanda demonstrated how to get your NET-Work working; by interacting in group settings, building a referral network, and sustaining relationships over time to create results. Amanda’s program taught us best practices to create more meaningful interactions with our referral sources consistently.

Tax Committee Webinar – DAC6 Reporting

As a precursor to the Virtual Members’ Meeting, on Thursday, May 20th, the tax committee hosted the DAC6 Reporting Webinar. The key takeaways from this meeting included the following:

  • The DAC6 provisions that require the disclosure of any transaction involving a EU based entity that meets certain requirements to the tax authority in that EU location. This means that rules will also apply to non-EU entities where there is an EU based entity that is a party to a transaction;
  • The hallmarks are quite broad and can include secrecy of parties to the transaction or steps involved, standardised products, the conversion of income to capital and the purchase of losses, amongst other hallmarks;
  • These rules aim to catch tax-advantaged transactions but as they are broad the rules do catch a number of innocent transactions, where tax avoidance is not a factor;
  • The disclosure is required by any advisor to the transactions and the taxpayer and once reported this is shared across the EU;
  • There is a penalty regime in place for failure to report and these vary across the EU and can be up to €1m; and
  • The penalty regime will mean that many advisors will consider reporting under DAC6 as a standard step and it should be empathised to clients that reporting under DAC6 does not mean that the transaction is a tax avoidance transaction or that the client has done anything wrong.