On question three, which concerned the difficulties encountered by ‘in-house accountants’ in determining the tax base of assets/liabilities, the professional body advisor said the reason was ‘lack of knowledge of tax law.’
The mining Chief Financial Officer saw two specialist accounting areas in a larger organisation: financial and tax.
Those in smaller enterprises relied on their auditors.
He said, ‘the tax effect accounting is what you focus on, the rest is just window dressing.’
The tax partner saw tax base as reasonably straight forward, ‘provided that proper tax cost base records are maintained.’