A winning team.

I'm a Red Sox fan. I used those words at the beginning of my first column as TEI President nearly a year ago, and it seems fitting to use them again in my last column. It's been a good year to be a Red Sox fan. The team's World Series victory, coming as it did on the heels of TEI's Annual Conference in Orlando, was especially sweet. Of course, it is also a good year to be a Celtics fan, and except for the last minute or so of the Superbowl, it wasn't too bad a task to root for the New England Patriots.

The smile on my face, however, owes itself to more than the success of Boston area sports teams: It is at least as attributable to the satisfaction and pride I feel because of the dedication, the efforts, and accomplishments of Tax Executives Institute's exemplary team of volunteers and staff during my year as TEI's president. In a time of challenge for tax professionals, business, and the world as a whole, the Institute and its members responded in a manner befitting our founders and our storied history. In this column, I review TEI's accomplishments over the past year and offer some well-deserved words of thanks.

Last August, the Board of Directors approved a set of goals that were grouped under the words--

While the framework of this year's goals was a bit different, the principles behind them have been constant since 1944. For more than six decades, TEI has devoted itself to enhancing and improving the tax system and to serving its members, their employers, and society generally. We've done this by facilitating interaction among, and the training of, members and their staffs, by effectively advocating its members' views, and by promoting competence and professionalism in both the private and government sectors.

Teamwork

One of TEI's principal goals this year has been to build a larger, more inclusive team of tax professionals throughout the world. The purpose was not growth for growth's sake, but rather to enrich the membership experience for ALL members by drawing more people into the TEI network. Hence, our focus was not only on possibly establishing new chapters in China, Australia, India, Mexico, and elsewhere, but on expanding the involvement of Chief Tax Officers in the Institute's activities.

As to the our growth abroad, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the outstanding efforts of our European and Asia Chapters that continue to grow by leaps and bounds. The European Chapter--whose May meeting in Copenhagen I was able to attend--has nearly crossed the 300 mark in membership, and now stands as the Institute's seventh largest chapter. Asia, too, has grown by leaps and bounds, with close to 200 members after only three years in existence.

It's too early to tell whether separate chapters in China or Australia would be viable, but the early signs have been encouraging. TEI has been fortunate over the years to have tax executives step up and assume leadership positions in our fledgling chapters. That's what occurred most recently in our newest chapter--Nebraska--where Randy Harvey and Eric Johnson assumed the role of chapter president and chapter representative to the Institute Board of Directors, and helped direct the chapter's first year. Congratulations and thank you.

Our CTO objective also produced positive results. We not only reworked--and renamed--our two-day forum on management, financial reporting, and tax strategy topics, but we were able to attract an experienced cadre of CTOs to moderate our technical sessions and breakout discussions. Our work in this area will never be done, but I believe we made considerable strides this year.

For me, one of our more exciting objectives under the teamwork goal was to develop three programs that reach out to students. First, this coming fall, TEI's chapters will roll out a "student-guest" program whereby the chapters will work with local colleges and universities to invite accounting, tax, and possibly other students to attend select chapter meetings. Second, our Atlanta Chapter will pilot an outreach program to colleges and universities with significant minority student bodies to promote taxation as a career. Finally, our Social Responsibility Program (which I discussed in my last column) will greatly expand the number and amount of scholarships offered by TEI and its chapters.

Excellence

TEI has remained relevant and valuable to its members by listening to their ideas and concerns, adapting to changed conditions, and maintaining a commitment to excellence--not only in connection with our educational programs, but in our advocacy work as well. One area where our educational and advocacy efforts were joined this past year is financial reporting, where we established a new committee to increase our interaction with to FASB, SEC, and other bodies in connection with FIN 48 and other financial reporting pronouncements. The committee will also bring focus on our training efforts, for example, ensuring we remain engaged on GAAP-IFRS convergence.

Similarly, both at the European Chapter and the Institute level, we devoted more attention to OECD matters, and included OECD-related topics on the agendas for our conferences and seminars. TEI members can be especially proud of our work on the OECD's tax intermediaries study where our meetings and submissions contributed to the international group's significant revisions of its initial proposals. As reported in my last column (and evidenced by the contents of this issue), our state and local tax activities also increased sharply during the year. Moreover, because TEI's decisionmaking process focuses our efforts on matters where we have both something to say and the potential for affecting the outcome, our amicus briefs and submissions have proven exceptionally effective. I offer collective thanks to the members of all our committees for their contributions.

One other aspect of TEI's quest for excellence deserves mention--our recognition that to be a successful tax executive we must be ever attuned to business, political (and geopolitical), and management trends. It is not enough to be a tax expert; today's business environment demands that tax executives be effective business leaders. To advance this objective, we did something a little bit different at our Annual and Midyear Conferences: Instead of confining our speaker cadre to tax experts, we invited two public policy experts--one a political economist and the other a reporter and news commentator--to share their ideas and insights. Marvin Zonis of the University of Chicago and NPR/ABC Commentator Cokie Roberts did exactly what we asked them to: They put tax ideas and proposals in a broader context. I am delighted that both of them were so well received.

Integrity

It's been four and half decades since TEI adopted its Standards of Conduct, which recognized the dual (and unique) role of in-house tax professionals as both advisers to their companies and the individuals that often implement the advice. Striking the proper balance between our duty to tax system and our duty to our companies is not always easy. To help TEO members strike the proper balance--to ensure an ongoing commitment to professionalism and suffuse everything we do as tax executives--reviewed our entire curriculum to ensure that proper attention is being paid to professionalism.

We also worked with the IRS, other governmental bodies, and like-minded organizations to grapple with the important topic of "transparency" and urged the adoption of balanced solutions to the tax gap and other compliance issues.

Finally, our Board of Directors adopted a Social Responsibility Plan that reaffirms the Institute's commitment to advancing important societal goals through an expanded scholarship program, a commitment to volunteerism, and targeted donations. Please see the report on Advancing TEI's Social Responsibility in this issue for complete details.

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Concluding Thoughts

Every baseball fan knows that the manager doesn't deserve all (or perhaps even most) of the credit or the blame. The most successful team leaders are those who help the team define its goals, recruit good members to the team (thanks to the Institute's superior "farm" system), and then "get out of the way." During my term as president, TEI has benefitted from an extraordinarily strong team, some who preceded me and who, thankfully, will remain as I leave office. In particular, I owe a debt of gratitude to the members of the Institute's Executive Committee and Board of Directors, our chapter presidents and committee chairs, and our dedicated staff.

I also owe a debt of gratitude to my employer, Polaroid Corporation; my colleagues and coworkers; and my wife, Judy, and the rest of our family. Without their unstinting support, I could not have effectively juggled my work, family, and TEI obligations.

There's a phrase in baseball that time begins on opening day. It stands as encouragement to those who didn't win the World Series that "there's always next year," but also a caution to those who did that success can be transitory. For more than 60 years TEI has been successful because it never took "next year" for granted; it has continually recruited, trained, and inspired future leaders. My successor as president, Vince Alicandri of the Toronto Chapter, is a tax professional who is clearly ready to lead the Institute. I offer him my congratulations and my support.

Robert McDonough

International President

TEI International President

Robert J. McDonough

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