New international tax and business service;

              NEW INTERNATIONAL TAX AND BUSINESS SERVICE
Shortly before the holidays, the Firm
provided each practice office with an
initial supply of "Taxation in the Unit­ed
Kingdom," the first booklet in a new
H&S International Tax and Business
Service.
By 1970, the Service may number 75
or more separate booklets on taxation
and business for the countries of the
world in which American businessmen
are interested. The complete set will be
packaged also in loose-leaf form and
will fill a bookshelf of especially de­signed
ring binders. Even after the first
editions are completed, they will have
to be continually updated. The bind­ing
of the booklets has been designed
to permit supplementary pages to be
added and obsolete pages replaced.
The Service was conceived to fill our
clients' need for general information on
the tax structures of foreign countries
and on other matters relevant to the
conduct of business abroad. The con­cept
and operating plan of the Service
reflect the combined efforts of Thomas
J. Graves and the Executive Office tax
staff, with T. Milton Kupfer and Eger-ton
W. Duncan taking leading roles.
The technical resources that have
been marshalled behind this project
will not be fully apparent until the se­ries
is well under way. Many of our as­sociated
international offices will even­tually
be involved. Already they are
preparing drafts on taxes in their own
countries, following the general pattern
established in "Taxation in the United
Kingdom." The pattern will be varied
to suit local conditions. Countries in
which we have no offices will be cov­ered
by our nearby offices or by firms
associated with us in serving our clients
there.
The tax booklets will describe in gen­eral
terms a country's income tax and
other principal taxes. A unique feature
will be a chapter explaining the signifi­cant
differences between the tax sys­tem
in the country and our own. In the
United Kingdom, for instance, items
of income are taxable only if they fall
in definite categories or "schedules." In
the United States all items of income
are taxable unless they fall within spe­cific
exclusions.
Preparations for the Service got un­der
way two years ago, when Ed Dun­can
came from Chicago to the Execu­tive
Office to be its editor. For many
months now, drafts have been flowing
in from our offices abroad for review
in the Executive Office. Ed has had
help in this review from Dwight Brown
(Detroit), Zachary B. Shwal and Hugh
A. Garnett (both Executive Office), and
Professor Donald H. Skadden of the
University of Illinois.
Ed Duncan's job calls for keeping
many balls in the air at once. So far, in
addition to the completed booklet on
the United Kingdom, he has piloted
manuscripts on Puerto Rico and Aus­tralia
through the involved editorial
voyage to the point where they are on
their way to the printer. Drafts on Uru­guay,
Peru, Canada, Venezuela, and
The Netherlands are nearing comple­tion
and have been sent back to our of­fices
there with various suggestions.
The manuscripts in process, which also
include Colombia, South Africa, Phil­ippines,
Mexico, Japan, India, and
France, reflect the broad range of the
countries to be covered eventually.
"Most of the need for editing comes
from communications difficulties," says
Mr. Duncan. "Some are matters of mi­nor
words. In Australia, for instance,
they talk about 'lodging' a return for
what we mean by 'filing.' " Others are
more complicated. Sometimes points
which our international offices think
can be glossed over will need special
emphasis for complete understanding
by our readers in the United States.
For example, in some of the Common­wealth
countries depreciation is allowed
only on certain types of assets; other
assets may not be depreciated even
though used for business or income-producing
purposes and even though
the asset has a determinable useful life.
The Commonwealth writer does not
realize just how difficult it is to con­vince
readers in the United States that
this is a fact.
Once the tax series is well estab­lished,
the booklets on other business
considerations will begin to appear.
These will cover such matters as types
of business organization which can be
used in a country, any restrictions on
nationality or residence of owners, in­centives
offered by governments to at­tract
businesses to their country, and
any regulation of currency, foreign
exchange, imports or exports.
No attempt is being made in the In­ternational
Tax and Business Service
to provide solutions to particular prob­lems.
The Service should, however, be
useful to our practice offices in helping
clients who have business abroad or
who are considering whether or not to
expand overseas.
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