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Weekly UpdatesIn the late spring of 1988, I sat in the office of my boss, then-TEI Executive Director Tom Kerester, with Tom and the Institute's President, Larry Langdon of the Santa Clara Valley Chapter. Lato, had come to Washington for a variety of reasons, including to interview the two finalists for TEI's open Assistant Tax Counsel position. The purpose of the meeting in Tom's office was to select the person to whom TEI would extend an offer of employment.
As I recall, the discussion didn't take long. Larry looked at Toro and me and said, "One simple question: Which one's the smarter?" Tom and I looked at each other and responded in unison, "Mary Lou." There's a truism in management that you should hire people who are smarter than you (which often isn't difficult) and then "get out of the way" (which often may be), so they can make themselves--and you--look good. With two decades of hindsight, TEI's decision to hire Mary Lou Fahey twenty years ago could be Exhibit A in proving the wisdom of this axiom.
In truth, it wasn't a hard decision in 1988. Mary Lou's pedigree was substantial. She was graduated near the top of her class at American University's law school, spent four exemplary years litigating cases in the Tax Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and then went to work at Covington & Burling, a top-flight D.C. law firm. She offered TEI everything we were looking for: a sharp analytical mind, excellent writing skills, unwavering principles, and calm and confidence under tire.
Mary Lou also offered us several things that we weren't specifically looking for: a good sense of humor, an unfailing memory of movies and songs, a whole-hearted commitment to collaboration and consensus -building, and a sense of compassion and caring that can only be born of faith and of challenges faced and overcome.
A reader of The Tax Executive need only look at the table of contents of the last few issues to see depth and breadth of Mary Lou's contributions as a key member of the Institute's legal staff. From cost sharing and the services regulations to contract manufacturing, from the IRS's recruitment and retention practices to the U.S.-Canada treaty, from the agendas and minutes for our government liaison meetings to stories about our educational programs, Mary Lou's handiwork can be seen. That's not all. As the Institute's chief legal officer, Mary Lou reviews all Institute contracts, is our contact person with IRS and D.C. tax officials when we ate audited (how many members can say they received a no-change letter from the IRS?), and serves as a resource to our chapters on their scholarships and other initiatives.
Mary Lou Fahey's value to Tax Executives Institute, however, transcends her performance on all the discrete assignments she's been given--and handled well--over the years. She is truly someone whose whole far exceeds the sum of her parts. That's true on a personal level, too. We have gone through a lot together, work-related and otherwise. While I am exceedingly pleased that she's been a member of TEI's team for 20 years, I'm even more glad she's my friend. Congratulations, Mary Lou.
Some Like It Hot ... Not!
If there were any doubt that state and local taxes is one of the hottest topics around, all you needed to do was visit TEI's State and Local Tax Course in Indianapolis in mid-July. For three and half days, a top-flight faculty taught the fundamentals of state taxation to an engaged group of rising tax professionals who met on the campus of Indiana University/Purdue University in Indianapolis.
Alas, the students were not the only thing that was rising at the course. The temperature did, too, as the result of a construction accident several blocks away that ruptured a 42-inch "chilled water line" and thereby disrupted air conditioning to the entire IUPUI campus, a major city hospital, and other parts of Indianapolis. The city worked feverishly to make the repair but could not complete the job before our course ended. No one I talked with was happy about having to endure the heat for the last two days of the course, but our faculty and students rose to the occasion, rolling up their sleeves (literally and figuratively), and plowing their way through the course material. Special thanks to Committee Chair Cathy Stevens and especially Mike Lowery, TEI's Assistant Director of Conference Planning, for staying cool under pressure and working with the IUPUI staff to bring fans and portable air conditioning units (to say nothing of the ice cream treats!).
Kudos and Encomiums
This issue includes the submissions TEI's International Tax Committee prepared on the IRS's proposed contract manufacturing regulations. One of the most impressive things about the project was the large number of members who volunteered to participate in the drafting process. (The names of the contributors are listed at the beginning of the position paper.) The group worked effectively to identify issues of concern; to strike balanced, responsible positions; and to craft proposed changes that could advance the IRS's goal of modernizing the rules without doing violence to the business realities that undergird contract manufacturing arrangements in the 21st century. I commend Brian Ugai of the Seattle Chapter for his leadership of the International Tax Committee, and to Dan Goff of the Santa Clara Valley Chapter (a committee vice chair) who travelled to Washington to represent TEI at the IRS public hearing. (It's a tribute to the quality of the Institute's comments that Dan was asked to testify first at the hearing.)
Hail and Farewell
Earlier this summer, Shirley Grimmett of TEI's legal staff resigned to accept a position in the Stamford office of PricewaterhouseCoopers. Shirley joined TEI two years ago after several years in industry (most recently, in R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company), where she focused on state and local tax issues. We wish her well.
Corrections
"Errata" is a fancy word for "we messed up." While no issue of The Tax Executive is error free, the May-June issue contained a few mistakes that call out for correction. On page 167, for example, the caption on one of the photographs misspelled the name of Ed Gauthier who received TEI's Distinguished Service Award upon his recent retirement from the Canada Revenue Agency. (We spelled his name right in the body of the story.) Two more typos appear on page 159, where we goofed on the names of LMSB Commissioner Frank Ng and Chester Abell of Ernst & Young, who participated in this year's Chief Tax Officers Forum. They all deserved better.
Another error appears in the Report on Social Responsibility, which recommends that the Institute create a pro bono award to recognize and encourage volunteer efforts by TEI members. During the discussion of the recommendation, a member of the Board of Directors recommended that the award guidelines clarify that both tax- and finance-related activities could qualify for the award. The guidelines themselves do, but our effort to note the clarification in the task force report was flawed. A corrected version has now been posted on TEI's website.
Finally, and to at least one reader perhaps most important, the caption on the whimsical photograph of TEI's Executive Director at the Maersk Museum in Copenhagen, which appeared on page 149, misspelled the name of the captain of The Love Boat. My apologies to devotees of the TV show and, in particular, members of the Merrill Steubing Fan Club.
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ITDF Meets in Brno
The International Tax Directors Forum is an informal networking group of chief executives from tax organizations from around the world. The ITDF meets annually to discuss issues common to membership associations, such as strategic planning and corporate governance, membership trends, advocacy and relationships with government agencies, the effective use of technology (including Internet sites and web-based communications), educational programs (including CPE certification) and other member services, professionalism, financial matters including sponsorship, encouraging volunteerism, marketing and branding, social responsibility, and staffing issues.
This year, the ITDF met in early July in Brno in the Czech Republic, home of the Chamber of Tax Advisers of the Czech Republic whose chief executive is the president of ITDF. (TEI hosted the meeting in 2006.) Pictured above, left to right, are host Radek Neuzil of the Czech Republic, Noel Rowland of Australia, Robert Dommett of the U.K., Stiian Klue of South Africa, Frits Sobels of the Netherlands, Timothy McCormally of TEI, Femi Fajolu of Nigeria, and Mark Redmond of Ireland.
Acknowledgments
TEI thanks the following firms for becoming sponsors of its 2008 Annual Conference:
PLATINUM
DLA Piper US LLP
Ernst & Young LLP
Grant Thornton LLP
KPMG LLP
Mayer Brown LLP
McKee Nelson LLP
Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP
Thomson Reuters
Vertex Inc.
BRONZE
Ceteris, Inc.
Chamberlain Hrdlicka, White, Williams & Martin
LexisNexis
GOLD
ADP
Baker & McKenzie LLP
Ballentine Barbera Group International
CORPTAX, LLC
Crowe Chizek & Company LLC
Deloitte & Touche LLP
DuCharme, McMillen & Associates
Duff & Phelps, LLC
Fenwick & West LLP
Global Tax Management, Inc.
Longview Solutions
McDermott Will & Emery LLP
Planitax, Inc.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
RSM McGladrey
Ryan, Inc.
White & Case LLP
SILVER
Alston & Bird LLP
Baker & Hostetler LLP
BNA / Tax Management
CBIZ Valuation Group, LLC
Huron Consulting Group Inc.
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