Deloitte has launched an Asia-Pacific
international core of excellence (AP ICE) initiative to provide
more cohesive international tax services to clients.

The AP ICE will be made up of 21 senior tax
professionals from 15 countries: Australia, Canada, China, France,
Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands,
Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, the UK and the US.

The AP ICE will offer the following
services:

  • Reduction of foreign taxes;
  • Optimisation of cash repatriation;
  • Business restructures to reduce worldwide tax
    and to optimise foreign tax credits;
  • Tax optimisation of supply chain-oriented
    business restructures;
  • Use of intellectual property in a global
    enterprise;
  • Tax-effective financing strategies;
  • Business expansion planning, including choice
    of entity and capitalisation issues;
  • Mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures;
    and,
  • Tax treaty planning and interpretation.

Deloitte Global tax managing partner Dan Lange
said the AP ICE was launched because of the increase in
cross-border business activity in the Asia-Pacific region.

“The nature of highly integrated cross-border
business activity gives rise to complicated jurisdictional issues
and potential risks,” Lange said.

“We hope to provide a new level of integrated
solutions to Asia-Pacific based companies investing abroad as well
as multinational companies investing in the region.”

More than half of respondents to the AP ICE’s
inaugural Asia Pacific Tax Complexity Forecast survey
indicated that their companies had in the past exited or postponed
entry to markets because of their concerns about tax complexity and
consistency.

The Deloitte AP ICE survey gathered the
opinions of 1,000 financial and tax professionals during April
2010.