FIN 48 Compliance: Are You Ready?

FASB’s Interpretation 48, better known as FIN 48, creates the most significant shift in federal and state income tax accounting in years. It has major implications for your firm’s tax and attest clients.

While your firm may have a good understanding of the key requirements of FIN 48, are you fully prepared to guide your clients through the compliance changes they’ll need to make in order to file their next federal and state returns correctly?

FIN 48 forces companies to assign a dollar figure to the uncertain tax positions they take on federal and state income tax returns, if they think that those positions “more likely than not” will be upheld. It involves an entirely new evaluation practice and its own share of complex provisions.

Listen as our panel of experienced tax advisors and veteran FASB-watchers help you unscramble the latest guidance so that you can prepare your tax and attest clients properly.

Our panel includes:

Richard Paul, Practice Fellow, Financial Accounting Standards Board. He is a member of the implementation team for FIN 48 and a project manager for FASB’s income tax convergence project. Before coming to FASB, Rich was a senior manager in the national office of Deloitte & Touche.

Barbara Flom, Jenner & Block, Chicago. She is the firm’s senior tax partner and has extensive experience advising clients on a wide variety of transactions, including business formation and capitalization, equity and other compensation planning, among others.

Neil Kimmelfield, Shareholder, Lane Powell, Portland. He has more than 25 years of experience as a tax attorney, litigating tax cases and handling administrative controversies before the IRS. He previously worked in the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Tax Policy.

Walter Pickhardt, Partner, Faegre & Benson, Minneapolis. He is the head of the firm’s tax group and represents clients in connection with tax examinations and administrative appeals before the IRS and other tax agencies and in litigation in state and federal courts.

Tom Windram is managing director in the national tax office of RSM McGladrey, where he has primary leadership for FIN 48 among other income tax accounting measures. Before joining RSM, Tom spent eight years in the Deloitte & Touche federal tax practice and three years at KPMG, and also worked in the tax departments for two Fortune 500 companies.

Among the key issues our panel will address for preparing the first annual and quarterly financial statements under FIN 48 in early 2007:

• How to document uncertain tax positions and establish units of account.
• How to calculate taxes and reserves under the new “more likely than not” threshold.
• Which approach to use to evaluate whether to update existing memos and opinions supporting previously taken tax opinions.
• How to measure deferred tax assets and liabilities and account for interest and penalties.

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