Meeting of minds?

Meeting of minds?

Didn't find your answer?

This is NOT a plug; its a serious question about what motivates FDs/TDs!

I believed is was reducing managing cost (including tax) and increasing profit. After a recent experince I am not sure ...

I work in a niche tax consultancy offering customs and international trade advice to UK importers and to companies that or use sell imported goods in theri businesses.

We recently offered an opportunity to reclaim overpaid customs duty to companies in the textile/clothing sector consequent upon a change in practice by HM Customs & Excise which they themselves had heavily publicised.

160 letters were sent out by me and followed up. Of these, 2 decided they wanted to recover such customs duty. We were offering payment for the service out of the monies recovered so no repayment obtained, no fee charged. The most often used reason for not proceeding was "not interested".

I know of companies who have obtained repayments of amounts of anything between £20k and £250k in this way.
Is it not that companies do it for themselves, because the majority do not have the necessary data to work this on their own.

How much product would they need to sell to realise profit equal to the unreclaimed duty they can get back? After all, the bottom line after tax is the return to the owner or shareholders of the business or what is reinvested in the business, so....

What is going on in the minds of finance and tax FDs?
Philip Bates

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By NeilW
22nd Nov 2004 13:11

Assumption
The assumption underlying your statement is that businesses are driven by the profit motive.

Often that is not the case. Either it is an owner managed business where the attitude is "enough is as good as a feast", or by managers who have specific top-line targets to meet regardless of the effect on the bottom-line.

Cost control and reduction is a remarkably hard sell.

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By neileg
22nd Nov 2004 15:07

Response rate
You would normally expect a response rate of about 2% for a targeted mailshot. You got 1.25% so it's not far off the mark.

The marketing game is a funny one, isn't it?

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By AnonymousUser
22nd Nov 2004 14:42

Were you talking to the right people?
In my experience, a good FD can see any potential benefits arising from an enquiry of this nature. However, if your letter went to the owner of the work under scrutiny, there is a possibility they will see this as a threat to their position/quality of work. Not great for you I admit but my step-mother runs her own telesales business and has had clients offering cost reduction. She has said in the past that the outcome is alarming - if you get to the top guy you'll at least get a response (usually positive at first) but anyone else generally is difficult to get through.

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By paulwakefield1
22nd Nov 2004 13:53

Nature of the beast
There is probably also an effect of having been put off by other tax saving scheme letters.

I have a number of clients who have been offered schemes which were, shall we say, pushing at the boundaries. They felt the risks and petntial short term nature of the schemes (before they were clamped down on) did not outweigh the possible benfits.

I am not suggesting for a moment that this is such a scheme but it may have been tarred with the same brush.

Paul

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