One minute with Jeremy Cape, partner at Squire Patton Boggs.
What’s keeping you busy at work?
Diverse stuff. Private equity, REIT structuring, tax advice for non-domiciled high-net worth individuals, reorganising a West African group and, on the public policy side, a considerable amount of time advising on the implications of Brexit.
Tell us about your work concerning emerging markets and Africa.
I’ve been focusing a lot on assisting clients in the Middle East with the introduction of VAT in 2018. Most businesses in the region are utterly unprepared for the basics, let alone the fun of determining the VAT treatment of an outsourced multiparty contract with mixed supplies, a loyalty card and a refund of overpaid VAT.
In Africa, there has been a tendency in some countries for the courts to use BEPS and public attitudes towards tax avoidance as a means to ignore the law altogether. The Acacia Mining case in Tanzania is a good example. That’s a challenge for a tax adviser, but it is our job, so we can’t complain. It’s a total pain for the clients, who should be able to focus on their business rather than tax uncertainty.
What’s your view on US tax reform?
Ever since joining Squire Patton Boggs earlier this year, I sit in on weekly calls with our tax policy team in Washington DC, which are always fascinating. Personally, I think that a destination-based cashflow tax has a lot going for it, but I cannot see anything more than a small, temporary corporation tax cut being agreed in the next 12 months. (But as the president might put it: ‘Failing Cape thinks US tax reform won’t happen. No one listens to his WRONG predictions anyway. So sad!’)
Tell us about your experience establishing a think tank focused on post-Brexit regulatory simplification.
I’ve worked with Rt. Hon Sir Oliver Letwin MP on and off since 1995, and took a sabbatical to work with him as shadow chancellor in 2005. He was setting up the cross-party ‘Red tape initiative’ last year, and asked if I would like to serve on the legal advisory panel. Squire Patton Boggs is supporting the think tank on a pro bono basis, and it’s fascinating to be working at the cutting edge of what the regulatory framework across numerous sectors may look like after Brexit. It’s looking for the win-wins that promote growth and jobs, for little cost.
Is there a recent case that has caught your eye?
It was interesting to see the recent Glencore Energy UK Ltd case ([2017] EWHC 1587) relating to the diverted profits tax. The case itself is on a narrow procedural point, but looking at the background facts, it suggests that HMRC considers the diverted profits tax to be a real weapon, and not merely a deterrent, even where the issue seems to be a fairly straightforward transfer pricing dispute. I hadn’t expected that, nor had I anticipated the type of taxpayers against whom it would initially be used.
If you could make one change to a tax law or practice, what would it be?
It seems crazy that corporate residence can turn on whether a director dials in from the UK or flies to Jersey, so I’d look at reforming the central/effective management and control test, maybe taking the US approach and looking just at incorporation.
I’d also like to have a time machine, go back to 1997, and abolish principal private residence relief, so I can look millennials in the eye today.
Finally, you might not know this about me, but...
When I travel every few months to our offices in Washington DC, I always do a guest slot at the Georgetown Piano Bar, which allows me to recreate my student days playing in restaurants. Inexplicably, they won’t let me play Radiohead. I’m impressed that Washingtonians seem to know all the words to Oasis songs.
One minute with Jeremy Cape, partner at Squire Patton Boggs.
What’s keeping you busy at work?
Diverse stuff. Private equity, REIT structuring, tax advice for non-domiciled high-net worth individuals, reorganising a West African group and, on the public policy side, a considerable amount of time advising on the implications of Brexit.
Tell us about your work concerning emerging markets and Africa.
I’ve been focusing a lot on assisting clients in the Middle East with the introduction of VAT in 2018. Most businesses in the region are utterly unprepared for the basics, let alone the fun of determining the VAT treatment of an outsourced multiparty contract with mixed supplies, a loyalty card and a refund of overpaid VAT.
In Africa, there has been a tendency in some countries for the courts to use BEPS and public attitudes towards tax avoidance as a means to ignore the law altogether. The Acacia Mining case in Tanzania is a good example. That’s a challenge for a tax adviser, but it is our job, so we can’t complain. It’s a total pain for the clients, who should be able to focus on their business rather than tax uncertainty.
What’s your view on US tax reform?
Ever since joining Squire Patton Boggs earlier this year, I sit in on weekly calls with our tax policy team in Washington DC, which are always fascinating. Personally, I think that a destination-based cashflow tax has a lot going for it, but I cannot see anything more than a small, temporary corporation tax cut being agreed in the next 12 months. (But as the president might put it: ‘Failing Cape thinks US tax reform won’t happen. No one listens to his WRONG predictions anyway. So sad!’)
Tell us about your experience establishing a think tank focused on post-Brexit regulatory simplification.
I’ve worked with Rt. Hon Sir Oliver Letwin MP on and off since 1995, and took a sabbatical to work with him as shadow chancellor in 2005. He was setting up the cross-party ‘Red tape initiative’ last year, and asked if I would like to serve on the legal advisory panel. Squire Patton Boggs is supporting the think tank on a pro bono basis, and it’s fascinating to be working at the cutting edge of what the regulatory framework across numerous sectors may look like after Brexit. It’s looking for the win-wins that promote growth and jobs, for little cost.
Is there a recent case that has caught your eye?
It was interesting to see the recent Glencore Energy UK Ltd case ([2017] EWHC 1587) relating to the diverted profits tax. The case itself is on a narrow procedural point, but looking at the background facts, it suggests that HMRC considers the diverted profits tax to be a real weapon, and not merely a deterrent, even where the issue seems to be a fairly straightforward transfer pricing dispute. I hadn’t expected that, nor had I anticipated the type of taxpayers against whom it would initially be used.
If you could make one change to a tax law or practice, what would it be?
It seems crazy that corporate residence can turn on whether a director dials in from the UK or flies to Jersey, so I’d look at reforming the central/effective management and control test, maybe taking the US approach and looking just at incorporation.
I’d also like to have a time machine, go back to 1997, and abolish principal private residence relief, so I can look millennials in the eye today.
Finally, you might not know this about me, but...
When I travel every few months to our offices in Washington DC, I always do a guest slot at the Georgetown Piano Bar, which allows me to recreate my student days playing in restaurants. Inexplicably, they won’t let me play Radiohead. I’m impressed that Washingtonians seem to know all the words to Oasis songs.
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