GGI International Staff Exchange – a wonderful experience in Italy

We proved that GGI offers not only an efficient business platform and a wonderful networking occasion but also a great staff exchange opportunity too!

This summer will be remembered by Comma10’s staff because of the special guest that we were fortunate enough to have with us for an internship from June to July: Sam Quinan, from Christian & Barton, LLP based in Richmond, Virginia, and son of our good friend Michael J. Quinan.

Let me give a brief summary of this period.

Sam landed in Italy on a sunny Friday and we were all a little worried as we awaited his arrival because of the challenge that having a young American intern would bring, but Sam’s character was such that everything immediately felt extremely natural and relaxed.

After a much-needed weekend of resting from the flight and recovering from jet lag, the internship started on Monday. To be honest, the beginning of daily work in an accounting or law firm is not that easy because of the language barrier and different rules for a non-native Italian speaker, but for us it proved to be an opportunity to work with an outstanding, smart and active colleague.

Sam was able to contribute to solutions, being involved in the issues of our international clients and in the solving the problems concerning both fiscal and business home country law, despite the peculiarity and the complexity of Italian legal system.

Everybody knows that Italy is not only a country with work prospects, but also an amazing place to visit, and we had the opportunity to travel with Sam on some business trips to special destinations including Lake Como and Rome.

The summer in Milan was hot and the city was further fired up for the FIFA World Cup matches. Sam was able to see first-hand that Italians are football addicts!

At the end of the internship, all the staff were very sorry to see Sam leave as great friendships had been established over the two months. The farewell was in true Italian style with a good pizza.

We would like to end this short article with Sam’s own words: “By the end of my eight weeks in Milan I felt like I had learned a great deal about the law and accounting systems within Italy, as well as gaining helpful business experience by being allowed to tag along for various meetings throughout the summer. This summer truly was a remarkable experience, one that I know that I will hold dear for the remainder of my life.”

Comma 10 Chartered Accountants & Lawyers
Auditing & Accounting, Tax, Advisory, Corporate Finance
Milan, Italy

Dr. Sergio Finulli
W: http://www.comma10.it

Christian & Barton, LLP
Law Firm
Richmond, VA, USA

Sam Quinan
E: squinan@colgate.edu
W: http://www.cblaw.com

ITPG winter meeting in Milan, Italy, 6 to 9 March 2014 Boredom, horrible weather and nothing to eat…

…is not what the 73 GGI members answered when being asked what they thought about this event. On the contrary, there was an abundance of excellent food at the traditional ITPG winter meeting, which took place on a sunny March weekend in the Grand Visconti Palace Hotel in Milan. In addition, all who attended the highly skilled technical presentations enjoyed themselves immensely. Dr. Sergio Finulli, Avv. Mariagiulia Signori and Dr. Simona Cucchi from the Milan-based host firm Comma 10 organised a wonderful program for the participants. As special highlights and first-time events in an ITPG meeting, activities included skiing, filming and a carnival party in fancy dress costume.

On Thursday, six participants drove from Milan to St. Moritz in Switzerland and enjoyed a wonderful sunny skiing day, which happily did not result in any broken arms or legs.

On Friday and Saturday, Serban Beldie, a filmmaker from Romania, shot individual corporate movies for six GGI members, who had agreed to undertake this project beforehand. ITPG VC Ionut Zeche had arranged for the filmmaker to come to Milan and had booked an executive suite for the shooting. Filming was also carried out during the technical sessions and breaks.

On Friday afternoon, the technical sessions kicked off with three tax-related PG meetings. Raluca Tutu chaired the ITPG sub-group Indirect Taxes, Professor Robert Anthony hosted a brainstorming session for his case study 2014 of “a lucky life” in the Private Equity and International Wealth Management PG and Ionut Zeche chaired the Immigration & Expatriate Services PG. In the evening, all participants and accompanying persons gathered for a delicious seafood dinner in La Bisboccia Ristorante.

The ITPG meeting took place for the whole of Saturday. Oliver Biernat began the meeting with a panel discussion on “voluntary disclosure of tax evasion”, including a comparison of the jurisdictions of seven countries, each represented by GGI members. Arlene Rochlin from the International Dispute Resolution PG talked about “Get Talking!! Attorney + Accountant = Accord + MONEY!”.

After lunch, Graham Busch offered an interesting panel discussion on the latest developments of Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) and the OECD with participants from five different countries. Jenny Panou presented a topic unknown to many tax experts: “Greek service centres – interesting for multinational groups?” and Ashish Bairagra talked on “Transfer pricing pitfalls in the initial years of incorporation”. In order to hold the attention of the participants, Oliver showed a selection of his comedy short films between the different sessions.

The middle section of the meeting featured some slides that showed the development of the ITPG since Oliver Biernat took over as chairman in 2008. Following the Milan event, the ITPG has 64 regular members and 369 visiting members. After looking at various tax databases and tax planning software, a discussion took place on a better name for “regular member” and on the venue of the ITPG winter meeting 2015. It was also decided that an ITPG FYI newsletter would be started in 2014.

Finally, GGI President Claudio Cocca held elections and Oliver Biernat was re-elected as Global Chairman of the ITPG and Graham Busch and Ionut Zeche were again appointed as Global Vice Chairmen.

On Saturday evening, all participants were encouraged to dress in a way that would be considered absolutely ridiculous at the office. Following by dinner at Spazio QC Terme Milano, they proceeded to attend a spectacular carnival party where fancy dress was obligatory.

Between the various courses of delicious food, the mind reader Federico Soldati from Switzerland, http://www.federicosoldati.com/, gave a terrific show, which fascinated the participants. He managed to solve a Rubik’s cube in not just less than 25 seconds, but also blindfolded. He was also able to find out two or three digit numbers various participants had thought of during the show and informed the room that the name of the first boy Julie Bryant had kissed was Tim.

After dinner, the party continued with live music and dancing, which continued long into the night past midnight. As usual, this was not the end for some very active attendees. It was reported that some people shocked the night-time taxi drivers in Milan with their strange outfits. When they struggled to find a bar that was open, they bought some beer and returned to the conference hotel, sitting in the lobby as the hotel bar was also closed. It came as a complete surprise to them when a group of other GGI members joined them at around 3 a.m. reporting that they had been the last guests in a bar a mere 100 metres from the hotel.

GGI member firm
Benefitax GmbH, Steuerberatungsgesellschaft, Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft
Auditing & Accounting, Tax, Advisory, Corporate Finance, Fiduciary & Estate Planning
Frankfurt / Main, Germany

Oliver Biernat
E: o.biernat@benefitax.de
W: http://www.benefitax.de