IRS Realigns and Renames Large Business Division

In a new press release yesterday, the IRS announced the renaming of their Large and Mid-Size Business (LMSB) division as part of their “continuing effort to improve global tax administration efforts.”

As part of the organizational shift, the name of the IRS’s large corporate unit — LMSB — will change on Oct. 1 to the Large Business and International division (LB&I).

“Executing our international strategy is a top priority, and our work continues to intensify in this area,” said IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman. “Every day, we are moving forward in our international compliance efforts. Bringing together our top international personnel in this new group will help us advance our global tax administration efforts and ensure focus and fairness in a critical area for our nation.”

The new LB&I organization will enhance the current International program, adding about 875 employees to the existing staff of nearly 600. Most of the additional examiners, economists and technical staff are current employees who specialize on international issues within other parts of LMSB.

The realignment will strengthen international tax compliance for individuals and corporations in several ways, including:

• Identifying emerging international compliance issues more quickly.
• Removing geographic barriers, allowing for the dedication of IRS experts to the most pressing international issues.
• Increasing international specialization among IRS staff by creating economies of scale and improving IRS international coordination.
• Ensuring the right compliance resources are allocated to the right cases.
• Consolidating oversight of international information reporting and implementing new programs, such as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).
• Coordinating the Competent Authority more closely with field staff that originate cases, especially those dealing with transfer pricing.
• Otherwise centralizing and enhancing the IRS’s focus on transfer pricing.

Continue reading at IRS.gov…

Jobs For New MBAs Are Back--But They're Different

From Forbes.com:

It looks like last year's predictions of a meltdown in the job market for new MBA degree holders may have been as panic stricken and inaccurate as many of the other forecasts we heard in 2009. As Pamela Mittman, who heads up career services at NYU Stern business school, reports, "We've been cautiously optimistic throughout the past year, and we're now seeing that optimism justified in a renewed commitment by recruiters in pipelining talent in the wake of the financial crisis. We've seen job postings for immediate hires up 40% on 2009 and vacancies in some sectors such as venture capital, private equity and consumer products up by as much as 70%."

The recovery may not seem quite as strong outside top schools like Stern, but it still appears to be a reality across the business education spectrum. The latest research from the MBA Career Services Council, which surveyed schools across the USA and Europe, found 60% of career departments reporting more job postings this year than last.

However, according to Becky Joffrey of the Tuck School, in New Hampshire, these general figures may be masking a substantial shift in the hiring picture. She says that more and more Fortune 500 companies are now hiring international MBA students, not for classic head office roles in the U.S. or Europe, but to run operations in their own home countries. "With the rapid pace of globalization, corporate America has got the message that global growth requires talent with in-depth knowledge of the languages, customs and geography of other parts of the world," she says. She cites examples from her school such as Manoj Sahoo, recruited by Cargill to run its Indian operations out of Singapore, and two other Tuck students joining Samsung to train in Seoul and then return to their native countries, Israel and India.

François de Wazieres, director of international recruitment for the cosmetics giant L'Oreal, says, "We are deeply interested in talent acquisition for our developing markets, because our sales in new markets will very likely exceed those in Western Europe this year, and our CEO is already talking about us reaching as many as 1 billion customers there." L'Oreal looks for graduates of major U.S. and European schools such as Harvard, Wharton, HEC and IMD and gives them their initial exposure to the business in centers such as Paris and New York. "This accelerates their learning path within the company and readies them for operational and entrepreneurial assignments in our new markets."

Banks: We're Hiring So We Can Make More Home Loans

Even though home sales are down, a handful of financial institutions are getting ready to hire more loan originators, so that they can increase lending. This should come as good news to the thousands of Americans finding it difficult to get a home loan. You can check out a segment of the story below, or read the full post at CNNMoney.com.

Several banks are gearing up to do a whole lot more mortgage lending in the future.

Even though new homes sales were at a historical low in May and the housing market in general is in the doldrums, these banks are hiring hundreds of loan originators, getting ready for what they believe will be a significant pick-up in lending.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), one of the nation's largest lenders, is in the midst of hiring 1,200 mortgage officers. "We may not be inundated with applications tomorrow, but we are confident the the need will be there," said Christine Holevas, a spokeswoman for JPMorgan Chase.

Housing experts, however, warn that overall mortgage lending is expected to remain flat, largely due to a decline in refinancing.

Loans for home purchases should steadily increase over the next two years to $916 billion, up from an expected $725 billion this year, according to forecasts by the Mortgage Bankers Association. But refinancings should plummet to $474 billion in 2012, down from $717 billion this year.

World's Rich Got Richer Amid '09 Recession

From MSNMoney.com:

The United States was home to the most millionaires in 2009 -- 2.87 million -- followed by Japan with 1.65 million, Germany with 861,000, and China with 477,000.

Switzerland had the highest concentration of millionaires: nearly 35 for every 1,000 adults.

Yet as portfolios bounced back, investors remained wary after a collapse that erased a decade of stock gains, fueled a contraction in the global economy and sent unemployment soaring.

The report, based on surveys with more than 1,100 wealthy investors with 23 firms, found that the rich were well served by holding a broad range of investments, including commodities and real estate.

"The wealthy allocated, as opposed to concentrated, their investments," Merrill Lynch head of U.S. wealth management Lyle LaMothe said in an interview.

Millionaires poured more of their money into fixed-income investments seeking predictable returns and cash flow. The challenge ahead for brokers is convincing clients to move off the sidelines and pursue riskier, more fruitful investments.

OECD Crackdown on Tax Havens Seen Lacking Teeth

According to Reuters.com, the number of countries included on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development "gray list" of tax havens – who have neglected to implement international tax standards – decreased from 40 to 17 over the past 12 months. Although the OECD has hailed this report as progress in their attempt to stamp out untaxed and illicit cash flows across the world, many critics are claiming the compliance bar was set too low to make a significant impact.

The stakes are certainly high, as the signing of bilateral Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEA) is the centerpiece of OECD and G20 efforts to crack down on tax havens.

The amount of money in tax havens has been estimated at $11.5 trillion by the Tax Justice Network, a respected and independent advocacy group that monitors such trends.

Spurred by public outrage over bonus-earning bankers and frauds by wealthy financiers, G20 leaders launched a campaign in April 2009 to name and shame tax havens and penalize those who failed to tighten standards and transparency.

But some say the havens are getting off lightly, and that it is more or less business as usual.

Continue reading at Reuters.com…