Friday, June 9, 2017

Multinationals hiding successes in failures, study finds

Multinational corporations are moving income from their profitable, high-tax subsidiaries into unprofitable ones to save money on taxes, a University of Waterloo study has found.

The study’s findings shed light on a tax planning strategy that is not currently focused on by governments, which tend to focus their efforts on firms who move their money from countries with higher taxes to lower tax-rate countries to save.

“Governments expend considerable effort to prevent their tax bases from being eroded by companies moving their money offshore,” said Ken Klassen, the study’s author and an accounting and finance professor at Waterloo. “This insight could help tax authorities better target their efforts,”.

Using theoretical models, the researchers examined income shifting by multinational firms and data from nearly 60,000 subsidiaries from 2003 to 2012 in Europe.

They found that firms that are in a country with a high tax rate are saving a significant amount of money by moving income to their unprofitable subsidiaries. The unprofitable subsidiaries are taxed at a lower rate than those that have higher profit margins.

The trend, said Klassen, is not unlike what he’s seeing in research focusing on Canadian and American companies.

“Analysts may not consider that a Canadian multinational would want to shift income into the U.S., where the tax rate is higher,” said Klassen. “These findings show us that North American companies can actually save a significant amount of money if they move income to an unprofitable affiliate in another jurisdiction.

“Determining if foreign affiliates are experiencing losses could benefit organizations such as the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) in deciding which transactions to scrutinize.”

While changing income earning patterns to use the losses runs the risk of drawing attention from taxing authorities such as the CRA, said Klassen, the savings seem to outweigh the potential negatives for many.

If the subsidiary does become profitable again, however, the extra income would be taxed at a higher rate.

The study was recently published in The Accounting Review.

New site helps researchers find award opportunities

A new website has been developed to help researchers identify prestigious awards that recognize their contributions to research.

The Prestigious Awards website outlines dozens of award opportunities along with deadline information and eligibility requirements. It also showcases recent prestigious award recipients.

An initiative of the Waterloo Awards Committee, the site was developed to make it easier for researchers to find award opportunities and support the university-wide objective to increase international recognition for excellence and innovation in research and scholarship by strategically pursuing prestigious national and international awards for faculty.

That’s a wrap (on the Keystone Picnic)

A message from the Office of Advancement.

Thank you to everyone who came out to enjoy the sunshine and the 16^th Annual Keystone Picnic last Friday. The event is our way of saying thanks to the more than 1,000 faculty, staff and retirees who support the university with their gift of time or money through the Keystone Campaign.  

Congratulations to Christine Goucher from Creative Services, who correctly answered all of the Keystone Trivia questions to win a PROOF Kitchen & Lounge gift certificate and a one-night stay at the new Delta Hotel in uptown Waterloo. 

Lots of other prizes were given out too. Here’s the complete list of prize winners and sponsors. And check out the great photos and video.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to making this year’s event a great success. If you aren’t already a Keystone donor, we’d love for you to join your colleagues in making a gift today!

Statistics and Actuarial Sciences hosts Datathon

​This article was originally posted on the Statistics and Actuarial Science news website.

Over 550 Waterloo students applied for 100 spots at the first annual Waterloo Datathon, which was held on May 13.

Like a hackathon, students were given a set of materials and asked to solve a structured problem. It involved working with a dataset, predictive modeling, interpretation and presentation of results.

This event was sponsored by Citadel and powered by Correlation One in partnership with the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science. The organizers awarded a top prize of $20,000 and second prize of $5,000 to the top two winning teams.

Congratulations to:

First place team winners

• Christopher Warren
• Ryan Kinnear
•  Thomas Alexander
• Richard Wu                                                        

2nd place team winners

• Shouzhen Gu
• Austin Tripp
• Wuhan Zhou
• Shun Dac Simon Suo                      

Photographs by Jon White.

Earth Sciences Museum celebrates 50 years; other notes

The Earth Sciences Museum will be hosting a 50^th Anniversary Celebration Family Day on Saturday, June 10 from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Attendees are invited to bring a picnic lunch and enjoy the free kid's activities while celebrating with the Earth Sciences Museum staff in the Peter Russell Rock Garden.

Activities will include gold panning, fossil fish, fossil snowflakes, and "minerals in materials." Attendees will have an opportunity to learn more about the museum's indoor and outdoor exhibits with a Rock Garden tour at 11:30 and a museum tour at 1:00 p.m.

Conceived as a Canada centennial project, the University of Waterloo Earth Sciences Museum was founded in 1967 as The Biology−Earth Sciences Museum, and opened to the public in 1968. A geological garden was opened in May 1987. In 1994, the Biology department withdrew its involvement and the museum became known as the Earth Sciences Museum. The museum remained in the original space until August 2003 when it was moved to the newly built EIT building.

Human Resources has announced the following retirees, effective June 1, 2017:

• Beverly Hershey, who started at Waterloo in January 1998, retired as Associate Director of Advancement, Library in the Library;
• Robert Newman, who joined the University in July 2005, retired as Stationary Engineer 2^nd Class in Plant Operations;
• Mary Kraehling, who began working at Waterloo in March 2014, retired as an Analyst in Co-operative Education and Career Action; and
• Marguerite Greavette, who joined the University in April 1999, retired as Admin Co-ordinator/Advisor, Undergraduate Students, in the Chemistry department.

The Secretariat would like to remind the campus community that nomination forms for the Vice-President, Academic & Provost Nominating Committee are due by 3:00 p.m. today. Please see the Secretariat website for open positions on the committee and nomination forms. For positions with more than the required number of nominees, elections will open on Wednesday, June 14. More information about the committee elections will follow.

Renison University College’s Administrative Dean Judi Jewinski is retiring after more than 40 years of dedicated service to the College and the University of Waterloo. A retirement celebration will be held at University Club on Tuesday, June 13, at 4:00 p.m. To RSVP, contact Tracey Antonio by sending an email to tantonio@uwaterloo.ca.