The More I Know - Clara Navalón Valero

If you have some finance manager on the ground, then you will always need a tax advisor. I really like a lot on tax advisors. Why? Because I feel I cannot, the more I know, the more I know, I know I don't know everything. Welcome back everyone to the Visora Bruce podcast. Today on Visora Bruce, we're joined by Clara Valero, a global tax executive with over 15 years of experience, leading international tax functions across some of the world's most dynamic companies. Right now, she serves as a global head of tax at emerging travel group. Clara is not only a strategic leader, driving cross-border strategy, M&A and digital transformation, but she's also an educator and mentor, shaping the next generation of tax professionals. And that's what we love here at Visora Bruce. We love people who like are shaping what the field and industry could become, where it's at her dive into her journey, her global perspective on the future of tax, and the lessons she's learned along the way. Thank you so much for joining Clara. How is everything going? How's the tax year been? Where? How is the team doing right now? Well, yeah, it's tough times. Let's say it's close to year-end. So, normally, when you work in house or even when you work as a tax advisor in big force or similar consultancy firms, year-end, when year-end approaches, tax people get very busy. Also, in the, yeah, I think it's full year, but year-end, it's normally end of the world. So, it seems that nothing happens after 1st of December that is life, that is nothing. But, yeah, so preparing for this also we have goals as in house teams, we have our KPIs and goals, so we also need to complete that before year-end. We have to close the books and so on, so it's tough times. So then for your team, like do you guys get like at least Christmas time off or like the holiday period off? Yes, we do have. Yeah, I think it's a normal Christmas vacation as everyone else. It's depending on where you are, it might be that early January, you might need to work, but it's, it might depend on where you work. Depending if you are busy with tax accounting topics, normally when you need to deal with a corporate income tax expense, calculations and so on and support the accounting team, then you might need to work also even weekends in January, but I've not been involved in that so far in the recent years. Okay, perfect. Yeah, so then brings you back to like public accounting days, right? Exactly. Yeah, normal, normal days. Yeah, we have time to rest as everyone else, so yeah, we are normal people, a bit freak, about taxes. Yeah, so like in my experience, I've seen so far like almost less than 10% of all tax accountants really love taxation as much as like that's what they want to like, they actually see it as fun work and those are the people who actually like do really well in this space and they like go really far ahead, but yeah, thank you so much for joining. So I've seen your resume, it's like really amazing. You've worked at like really global tax function across multi major national corporations all across the world. So why don't you take us back and talk about like how did your journey and tax began and also what inspired you to like take on this field? Sure, yeah, it's as you can imagine, it was not on purpose, right? So it was just sort of a coincidence that I started in the tax field. I studied law and economics, so both degrees at the same time and that's very suitable for tax experts and tax people, right? Because then you need to know about legislations and laws and of course you need to understand counting principles. So yeah, first when I was good in in tax subject in the university, but yeah, still not like my cup of tea, right? So it was just something I like. I love traveling, that's something. So I love to be in contact with international people and I've always been traveling a lot when I was young. Yeah, also I started in Transurprising, practice in KPMB Transurprising team in Madrid. And I was there for, yeah, some months, one year, one and a half year, and then I trivialized I wanted to learn more about taxes. I really like it. So at that point in time, my partner told me, because I wanted to move to international taxation and learn more about international taxes, apart from Transurprising, I love Transurprising, but I found that in two years I had learned, like all Transurprising principles already, right? It was back in 2009 or so when all Transurprising rules were still early states for Europe, but not so much for America's. But yeah, I found it super interesting, I always I've been always moved to learn more and more. And then I moved to the Lloyd Practice International Corporate International Tax Team, right? So it's a mix of projects, international tax projects, corporate income tax assessments, clients, tax compliance, tax risk, tax audits, and everything. So I learned a lot. And then yeah, I realized I love I love taxes at that point, and then I moved to in-house roles, which I even like more, because yeah, I think the role I really love is the in-house tax practitioner, because then you see all the projects from the very beginning till the end. So you feel that you really provide input and value to the company in the sense that you can finish all projects, then you can guide the teams internally. And you see how everything goes, right? So I think it's very interesting from a professional perspective to see that from the insights of the of the in-house role as a tax expert. For sure, tax people in the tax advisory firms is great job, but for myself, I like more in-house roles. It's very interesting. So then as part of you said, your international exposure, you lived in Europe and you lived outside of Europe. So how has that international exposure like changed your perspective on taxation and your leadership, especially as you've worked at different roles across the world? Yeah, I think it's very important when you work with international taxis and perhaps other areas, obviously in the businesses. It's very important to be empathetic. You need to learn a lot about different cultures. You need to understand the culture. You need to understand the people, what is the ideal, in-classy of each of the countries. So that you will better understand the politics as well, because taxis is very into politics. And then the local people, you also need to understand how they work, how they are, right? So that you can better get to better outcomes together, despite even if they are tax advisors or local tax teams or even finance teams. I've been working with people from all the continents and it's can be very different, but it's very important that you adapt to that. So yeah, I think taxes are similar in a way, right? So the principles for taxation are very similar. Tax authorities normally try to collect as much money as possible. That's the truth, right? But we can understand that. So it's the first source of income for the governments, we can understand that. And if you are a big multinational, they will target you. And then you will need to defend yourself and then you will need to be very strong in your argumentation. So yeah, I think it's very different, but at the same time is the same. There are some countries for sure in Europe, I don't know, Norway, Sweden, UK, the Netherlands at some point in time. They were very friendly and tax authorities super friendly. You can speak to them very directly, emails, phone calls and so on. If you go to Mexico or Latin America, that's completely different story. If you go to Russia, India, I'm not so, I don't have so much experience, but I've heard also it's very one to one and then you need to have like good relationship with the local authorities. So yeah, I think it's completely different story Africa as well. So it's very different, different. You need to understand that to be world position, you need to have very good local teams in the ground to support the company on each of the topics. And yeah, so in your, so very vast experience and like very across the world, any particular projects that came to mind when you were working cross-border, when you were working with local tax authorities in different countries where you're like, okay, this is, I remember this project for the rest of my life. Something about those projects, do you want to share? Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So yeah, I got super interesting projects, the ones I can't remember normally are linked to tax rulings that we negative with tax authorities, good outcome from Spanish tax authorities, APAs, for example, also the Netherlands, tax rulings, Germany as well, good outcome also on tax audits in Norway, UK as mentioned, not so good with Latin America or Ecuador, Mexico, difficult, but at the end of the day then you can, you have brother come, which is like, almost man, that they have locally that can help you. But again, you need to be very close to the local teams and very close to the authorities. So in terms of projects, yeah, I think the negotiations with tax authorities, let's call the association, or tax audits, edifications and so on, very good outcomes, some others more challenging. in terms of discussion with tax authorities mainly in Latin America. And then, emanates as well, very interesting projects, IPOs, spin-offs, also more on the business side and on the emanate side deals, very interesting as well. Also, I got very good outcomes on refound for BET credits, R&D credits, for example, in the UK. Also, they get to some money back if you can prove that you have a real R&D development. And then, for sure, many other projects like loving, a lot of loving activity in Brazil, also in Spain, France, with digital taxes, which is something relatively new to some of the companies, the Google tax. And yeah, good outcomes or not. I think it's very interesting to discuss with the political parties, try to influence them. On the legislation and so on, so interesting projects. And yeah, I think that's more or less. So then, you mentioned IPOs. Not many tax professionals get to see IPOs or like work-through-try-pOs. How was that experience working in-house? Were you working? So you were working in-house. So like, how was that experience where taking a company go through an IPO process? Is it, I know it moves really fast, and you have to do a lot of documentation in the work to get ready for the IPO. So how does that work from like a tax perspective? Well, it works in the way that you need to be very well settled. And sometimes, it's not the case for these companies that are going through an IPO, because they are, perhaps, even in the early stage. They are even start-ups or close to that. So you need to have a clear view on your tax risk. Then you normally, you have a perspective that you need to serve openly. And then it's there. You need to serve all your tax risks. You need to have very good understanding of the likelihood of the amount and the countries where you can have tax exposure. For sure, you need to prepare all your governance, meaning your tax governance framework, your tax governance model, so your tax policy, your processes, internal controls. It's very important, so that once you are listed, then you need to prove that you are paying taxes on time, on the fair amount, that you are fully compliant with, transfer pricing, documentation requirements, with all tax requirements, you know? So yeah, you need to, and then if you go through an espinoff, I've gone through this IPO once, and, well, sort of twice, but it was not fully IPO. Yeah, I think let's say twice in Adevinta and in Sandov, and both companies were listed, in a very short period of time since I joined. Well, yeah, in Adevinta, I was, therefore, almost two years, but in Sandov, it was only like half a year. So we had to prepare, it was first an espinoff from Novartis, so we had to sort of hand over, well, to take over, all the responsibilities from the Novartis tax team into Sandov tax team. We had to prepare on our side to build a tax team on our side alone, for sure, with all the controls, processes, and so on. As mentioned, so a spin of from Novartis with some normally, what happens when you are under an espinoff is that you have some sort of temporarily support, both sides, so that you have some transition service agreements in place with the other party, right? So both cases were where I was part of IPO's first, there was a demurrier, because those were part of different groups. So same group divided into two businesses or business lines, one is IPO'd, and then normally you get some sort of dependencies with the other party that you need to document in sort, not intercompany agreements anymore, because those are not intercompany agreements, but you need to build all these support for some two years period or so. Very critical is for the IP, for example, when you are dependent on the IP from the other party, somehow, then you need to split the IP, and then you need to set up for sure, valuation, you know, IP valuation reports and new transfer price in policy, it can depend a lot on the case, but it's very complex, and the same ones you acquire and you group, I was also part of acquisition of eBay when I was in Alivinta, so we were IPO'd, then we acquired the classified business line of eBay, was also worldwide, and we were doubling the size of Alivinta, at that point, that was really challenging, because then we had to merge two groups, which were completely different groups, and in a very short period of time, with all the considerations of being compliant with tax perspective, we had to sometimes merge some companies at the same time, take care of all the emanate appeal, meaning that the acquisition, transaction costs, how we were going to structure everything, so it's very interesting, it's very, very interesting, but it's at the same time, it's challenging. So when you have these integrations coming in, and two groups merging, especially if you're a boat, international companies, and you have similarities of the same countries, then you have to merge those groups together, I was that process for you, and then I think as part of when I was in M&A, that's really interesting, that's really interesting, because then you get to move around, and then you have to basically play a Tetris, over there we're trying to fit in all the pieces, and make sure the transaction goes through works really well, because you don't want to trigger taxable gain, or you don't want to have adverse tax consequences off going through this process. - Exactly, that's exactly the point, so you need to manage at the same time the structuring piece, which you need to structure the deal in a way that is tax-efficient, so try to avoid potential leakage, in VD, corporate income tax, and capital gain taxes for sure, and you need to manage also all reporting, now we have a DAX-6 reporting also is important here, because sometimes you might need to report some transactions, and then for sure you need to integrate, and teams with is also very important, and processes into your group, the acquiring group, so it's very difficult, then you need to work, in the case of Adevinta, we had to work on that, I think from sign-in date until closing, the deal it was one year, planning the integration, when the deal was closed, then we made this effective, so we had to double the tax team, but we, you know, with temporary resources, also because we were, all the teams were still on hold, we were thinking how both groups were going to merge, right in terms of teams and who was going to work for work, so there was nobody from evade tax team coming, so we didn't have more team members coming, so we had to hire temporary resources, but this team, I mean, there were resources that didn't have a clue about this evade, isn't it, right? And they were also working partially, so challenging, it's very interesting and motivating, and then you learn very quickly, we also had, you also need to plan a lot with the other parties, so we had a lot of sort of integration millions with evade tax team in the US, planning to ask how they were dealing with things, what were the governance processes, normally you need to go with a global tax compliance advisor, global transfer price and advisor, and so you need to manage all that, so that everything after day one works same way, and you are not missing any deadline, any problem, but of course there are many implications, then you need to report changes in the ownership, APAs might even be terminated because of the changes in the ownership, then you need to negotiate, you know, so all these things I recall were challenging, and for sure all the structuring of the deal, very interesting as well, very, there were new things we had to learn, discuss with local tax authorities, for example, the attribution of transaction costs, that was also, as you can imagine, this sort of deals, the amount of costs from investment banks, lawyers and so on is very significant, so where to put this cost, where to attribute this cost, normally you will include this cost in the whole identity, the acquiring entity, but this is not efficient from tax perspective, because then you have BT leakage normally, whole identity cannot deduct BT, and cannot deduct corporating on tax as well, right? So we thought about allocating partially based on transaction rules, some of these costs to the subholding entities acquired in part of the businesses, and that way we had to discuss with local authorities in the Netherlands, Germany, on how they see that, from BT and from corporate income tax perspective, we had to build some new tax groups as well, and all these normally needs to be sort of discussed up from with the tax authorities. In Europe, it's very common that you can go up from and discuss with the tax authorities to see their view before you implement any structure. - So it's really interesting. So when you talked about the different groups integration and tax teams coming in and you had to hire resources, and you've worked in different industries, so you've built department tax departments from the ground up, right? So what were your biggest challenges like in building tax departments, and also like what have been some of the core leadership principles. and skills that you abide by that help you build out these departments that carry you as like a head of tax. Yeah, I have to say it's one of the parts of my role that I like a lot. It's one of the ones I really really like it. I'm really motivated with this part. Why? Because I love like dealing with people right and try to build high performing teams and try to see them grow and try to help them grow. It's very difficult. You need to find exactly what type of expertise you need. It might depend on whether you are in a centralized or the centralized model. It means so you might have local teams local finance teams is very common. You might not have subsidiaries everywhere. You might be like a central tax team with with local teams, not necessarily tax teams, but local finance teams on the ground that can help you to, you know, discuss with local tax authorities discuss with tax advisors, at least do something right even prepared tax returns and deal with tax compliance. This is a model the centralized model. So in that case, the central tax team should be perhaps even smaller. But if you are pure central. You are under a pure purely centralized team, which is the case I have now in emerging traffic group. We are a fully centralized team. No, people not even finance people on the ground. So we need to deal with everything is true that tax compliance falls under tax. But so you need to understand first, what is your model, what are your needs in terms of tax expertise. Normally, you will always need transfer price in expert. In direct tax expert. And then you will need international tax expertise on top of that, you might need tax reporting in case the tax report in it does not fall under counting teams in the organization. And then you might need like, you know, tax litigation, expertise and so on. But I think these three basics. So international tax transfer pricing in direct taxes are the key pillars plus, plus perhaps tax, yeah. Tax reporting and compliance, but this can be covered by international tax experts. You need to have these expertise because transfer price in beauty or in direct taxes does not have anything to do with that with one with the other, right. So you need specific people here and then international tax people with expertise globally. You might not need know about all countries, but you know, you might manage you know how to manage that and you know about double tax rate is the principles and so on. So I think that's that's also a separate pillar that you need in your tax team. It's interesting because in the US, it's the opposite. We hire first for like a tax reporting a provision person and doing the compliance. And then you might get like someone international, maybe then it goes in direct and then at the very end, there's an in house transfer pricing person. It's the opposite here, even if you're like an outbound company and you have investments, I don't see a lot of companies having like a indoor in house like a tax person. Yeah, I think it's also because the tax compliance in the US is so complex that you definitely need and tax reporting is also very complex and completely linked to the compliance part, right. So for sure, you need to be compliant. That's why if you have local teams normally the tax compliance, my fall under local teams or under accounting teams in my experience in Europe, that's very common, but it might depend. And then what would you say like what model works best for which companies like if you have wanted to go for like a decentralized versus a centralized what kind of structure would fit best for both. I think each of them has pros and cons. It depends also in the business and now in the emerging travel group, for example, is a fully remote business tech company, travel tech, so the teams are completely spread around the world. So I feel the centralized model works better for this business. All the style is more the centralized model why because I think it's you have very good pros on the centralized models because you have people on the ground, which I think for tax is very important to have people that is close to tax authorities. There could be some indications, then you need to understand the language, the language, then you need to understand how the approach of tax authorities locally and even if they are a director or even if this is a finance manager. It's good to have somebody on the ground in my view for taxes, but if you cannot because of this model that is fully centralized and remote, then it's fine to have central mode is good to have a central model as well. Why because then you have fully controlled you own you are accountable for everything you understand all things, but you also need to spend a lot of time a lot of money in advisors local advisors and then you need to find the trust full advisors on the ground again because you need. Yeah, you pull on the ground. So then when you say like a centralized model is that when you work a lot with the outside tax providers and in that model is that where most of the work is being done it's outside tax providers that help out so then essentially your in house centralized people have to become an expert in almost everything. Yeah, that's it that's the point which is difficult so that's why at the end of the day we know in taxes you cannot know you cannot be an expert in tax regulations broadly right globally it's impossible you need to have local expertise but this even happens for local teams if you have from finance manager on the ground then you will always need a tax advisor. I really like a lot on tax advisors why because I feel I cannot the more I know the more I know I know I don't know everything right so I think it's important to trust the people that really have the expertise in discussing with tax local tax authorities and they know the nuances and the particularities of the local regime and tax court decisions you know and that type of things. I prefer to spend money here and do things better rather than be you know have a various large tax team and then with people as you say that they don't know what to do they are it's very difficult to find the right information and the right source of truth with which we can discuss if you want as well AI topics and so on for tax people and where we find the right information for for our tax research. So what's been like your guiding like philosophy and principles of like building teams what do you rely upon what kind of leadership style have you like implemented have learned about that have like guided you throughout your career. My leadership style is a is very flexible I love to build like a culture of trust flexible and also talent I like to promote talent I like to identify I feel I can identify talent easily and I want to to promote that the best way and very a lot of trust transparency a lot of good communication and build culture of good relationship among the whole team. Where we can support each other as a team where we all know what is happening even if this is not under our responsibility we more or less understand the grounds and we we know that there is a tax audit here order and then we communicate with each of the team members easily. So think trust talent and transparency are the three pillars in my leadership style and and yeah I love as mentioned I like a lot hiring people and finding the right talent globally I work with people from different cultures and countries in my team as well. And I think it's also a learning interesting learning for for both sides to learn how to work with more directly in the team people from other countries and cultures. So then do you have like any role models or people that inspired you in your career throughout like some specific instances yeah I have had some but I don't think they are public right so people I face that during my career are yes and people I've really spot as leaders really like to and I think that's very. So leadership for me it's a ski it's not management micro management is like inspiring people telling them something that really makes them think and makes them feel that they are providing value to the company that rings the bell in their in their head and that they feel motivated for sure right so I think it's I want to transmit all the passion I have in my work to them so because I think we really do things interesting that. That contribute to the value of the company increase it will provide a lot of efficiencies and cause savings and for sure a lot of certainty in the sense of tax compliance risk management and so on. So I think we are a key asset for the company and I want to transmit the teams the same sometimes they don't feel this is the case I find it's because they are uniosis still so they feel I don't know exactly what what value and build contributing. But yeah I try to transmit this and to make them feel this passion as well. How do you make yeah exactly so like if you're a junior person who's like like one to three years and like you don't see the importance of tax as much as like person who's been in there right they can see they've gone through different things and how I don't tax a company. So like how do you tell someone or how because tax is not very like passionate about yeah very popular yeah in that sense so how do you get someone to be passionate about what they're doing and we get really excited because the more passionate you are about like what you're the impact and you see the impact you're making the better you are going to be at your overall job. Exactly exactly but it also depends on the person you know it's personal has a different character I've also yeah I learned and I like to understand which is the character for each of the team members right because we might be achievers which is my case for example I love to achieve and I feel motivated when I achieve things but others are helpers that they prefer to help others they holders in the team in the company they feel better when instead of them achieving they help others achieve something right so it's tried to first understand their character and then what I would tell a union member to try to feel attracted by taxes I think it's international taxes is I think for me at least this is very interesting why because it has a lot to do with culture politics economic impacts and then you know business impacts for the businesses and then you see a lot of the business because you need to be very close to the business so tax teams are a key part of the business chain let's say this way we need to be very close to the CEOs to the CFOs and provide with good advice and they need to feel that this is really the contribution is there because we can provide high savings right sometimes it's millions I don't know how many other teams can really provide that big savings even being compliant I'm speaking I mean with a big and aggressive just being compliant then because nobody has really thought about that they are doing that in a way because that was done in the past and now you come up and then you suggest a different approach and then that approach can save the company millions of US dollars euros I think that is super rewarding for as a professional it's not only and then you will never have a day the same as the other you need to learn you need to be up to date in all tax legislations because there are tax updates every single day I receive alerts from all countries there are many many tax alerts and then on the OCDU level UN level as well right so at international level there are many changes updates beps now we have now pillar chew we have pillar one we have so many trends in the tax arena always since I started working almost 20 years ago it's even interesting you never stop learning and it depends on the I mean you need to if you want to be a tax person you need to like international tax you need to really be motivated by learning new things study and new things challenge yourself and don't have one day same as the other and for sure we're very close to the business understand very well the business that's very important correct so yeah that's really great advice like you gotta be like always continuously learning so let's say like you're graduating college right now you just got your degree and you think you want to go into tax also I see the impression being at an inflection point there's changes coming into the industry first of all international tax has gotten like so much more complex since like what I've initially started as well right so there's so many changes coming around there's a lot of tech coming into the industry as well that is also like some people are like junior people might not have the opportunity to learn as much as like what have the time to learn as much we did when we first started and then at the same time there's a lot more companies accounting firms going like in the sense that changing from CPF firms into just more tax advice advice reforms with like the influx of private equity and like those kind of like changes happening there as well so if you are just graduating college how should you be set up now to go into the industry and be a successful in the tax professional it depends a bit where if this is Europe beginning about Europe where is my continent let's say I think you need to definitely start my recommendation is to start in big force that's accounting firms similar also including about as you said CPAs or yeah similar firms also recommendation I know perhaps not everyone will align with that but I think you need to work very hard why I recommend big force is because they will make it work really hard yeah so you work very hard but at the same time you learn from very good professional and they give you the opportunity to learn and be part of very interesting projects that was my case right so I learned super quickly in KPM and Deloitte and I really enjoyed that part I was part I felt that I was part of very very impactful projects and that was the case with good outcomes on tax outage and so on despite I was only yeah like manager level even at the end part and junior at the very beginning but I think working hard studying hard normally I would recommend as well some sort of master in taxation or something that you can do like a post degree master to complete your studies or some courses as well is interesting attend conferences now online you can listen to everything conferences and seminars even without paying but you need to be up to date read alerts and start figuring out your mind on on tax topics so yeah I think working hard having a propose a clear propose you need to understand whether this this is for you are not I know it's difficult but if you know you you like it you will feel it and then go for that then you will be better you will become better I think you mentioned know the more you know about something you you do it better so you need to dedicate time and and and then also be patient because things happen after after you yeah agree I agree on the patient part because I feel like tax is something you don't master within one or two years it takes that's a slow ride and then then something clicks eventually it clicks for me it did first I was very afraid to like even write in code sections or like sending memos to my managers as you manage as well I was like oh what if I got this wrong now you have like co-pilot and like all the different tools helping you do your tax research where you can like help out and like get that analysis done before you can present it before we used to have to like go back and search through the code and be like okay this is what it is so yes eventually I agree something clicks so what have been like and I know you've been talked a lot about leadership qualities and leadership skills and you like I think you like emphasizing more on that and like training the next generation what are some like really good books that have helped you or like you like going back and reading to it all like some some of those aspects well honestly I'm not really reading currently leadership books this way I try to feel inspired by a podcast and then you know psychologist speeches and then LinkedIn there is a lot of information in LinkedIn resources so yeah I mean I read all other type of books but not really in leadership I feel I don't know I feel like it's not true in me right so I like it I have my own style and I've been learning and developing this style I don't I don't focus in leadership development on my site perhaps it's a bit not very humble but yeah I feel this is not one of my you know weaknesses so I try to work on on some other things and read all the type of books yeah I think normally podcasts are very interesting and I have I can read but if those are normally in the Spanish for myself so not sure I can recommend but yeah LinkedIn has a lot of information on leadership style so but I think you need to build your own leadership you need to be feel comfortable with that and what you were saying before and I'm about being afraid about serving something with your manager and so that's completely normal even this happens to us still right so sometimes when I need to jump into meeting with the CEO I was like okay he's going to in plus he's going to say I don't like this whatever right so but that is normal and that's why I think it's it's good because you are in the good in a good way the fear it's it's common it happens to all of us right so but you you need to accept it and don't get too I could say don't overthink yeah I think fear is also great also in the sense that it makes you want to double check everything it makes you want to like not stay also not get too comfortable with like the solution it came up with so also always improving always getting better and as the great code goes that says only the paranoid will survive that's how I always think like hey what if I miss something so that makes me like want to like double check because like taxes like going through a minefield like what if like there's not something like there's not an answer we go like oh sorry I didn't know about that the taxes will be like okay but it's in the law right so you sure we do not care especially when it's like come you miss a filing or like oh there's a pillar to notification obligation in this country you forgot about they won't care they just find you right away I know, and that's one of the parts that is very challenging in Texas because you cannot cover everything. It's very difficult, it's a complex topic, but yeah, I think as an advice is good to be protectionalist, I agree, I think for this part is good to double check everything, but also be inefficient because at some point sometimes you can fall into the procrastination that then you never send the memo because then you feel there is always something to check and to improve. I think we need to balance efficiency somehow, I think managers, I read it somewhere, a manager will perhaps not even notice if your memo is at a 90% perfectionist or at a 60%, they might even value more the timing of delivering the memo, being compliant with the deadlines and so on, I'm just guessing, or the conclusion, if there is an attipo in the page 8, I don't think nobody will care about that, so just sometimes it's a good comparison of your manager or even the client might not really value so much value if your memo is 90% or 100% perfect or 60% 70% I mean, you need to go to an average and some standards need to be complete, but I mean, if between 70 and 90, perhaps it's not a big difference, but it's perhaps one day more of work on your site, so I'm not sure, yes, yes, I tell this to my team because I feel sometimes that depending on the character, there is people that are reluctant to serve and no, but I'm still reviewing, you know, and search more and more and then, yeah, okay, let's serve it and then there is always time to double check, I mean, if this is a tax return, you'll need to, but that's why you need to have at least different reviewers in the process for a tax return, for example, so you have counting team, tax team, tax advisor, these three people with teams should be sufficient and then if there is any miss, okay, I mean, everybody commits errors, that's fine. So and also where do you see our industry going as like what you've seen, you've spent time, you've had experience, you've seen the industry change, where do you see it going and then do you have any advice for like the industry leaders who are setting the standards and setting the objectives for the next like 10, 20 years? Tax industry, you mean right? Yeah, tax industry. Yeah, tax industry, I think we will need to be very close to AI. Yeah. I think you need to be super close, some people are trying to close ice, but definitely we need to be super close, same as lawyers and try to be as efficient as possible. I think definitely automation AI and yeah, tax technology are key drivers for the next years together with tax tax account and I think tax reporting with pillar 2 and so on are key expertise areas that we need to focus on and I think until now nobody has been really focusing on tax, well, at least globally right? So perhaps in the US tax reporting might be more key, but not everywhere. So we need tax reporting expertise, tax technology expertise. So we need AI experts that can help tax teams to improve and automate the processes and save time. I think, yeah, I think that's the future for sure and be very close to, yeah, I think also remote work, it's important to monitor. I think OCD and you are going a bit late here, but after COVID I think everybody is a bit more flexible in remote working and companies are not all, some of them have gone back to not non remote work, but I think also having people all around, it's something that is really evolving and when it takes authorities to comment on that and to understand and to be very free, a bit more flexible because currently you cannot have a P rest everywhere if you have people, right? So we need to put some sort of rational and materiality on the real risk, yeah, not challenge remote people just because they want to work, I don't know, six months from or some months here, some months there, I mean, internally in the company, we tried to put guidelines and set some boundaries, but it's difficult to control everything. In all companies, I've been, it's the same problem. Everyone's not so big, so yeah, I think remote and after COVID, definitely it's really growing. Correct. Yeah, I think I really like your point of like the professionals will have to adopt AI. I think there's so much upside for like professionals adopting and all like tax people haven't been like the most tech forward, but like there are people who are adopting and I think like the people who will adopt will get so much more work done and I think it will like really help. I wish I had all these technologies when I first started, I remember doing like an ECI effectively connected income like question that took me like 10 hours to get through one day because one, I had to learn what effectively connected income was as a staff and then two, understanding how it would impact different jurisdictions coming into the US. So I think life has become changing, but it is also becoming helpful. Yeah, exactly. It's providing with more support for everyone, but I think it's good to understand the grounds and everyone says that I think AI can really support better, the people that really have better knowledge and more senior. So that's why for you, it takes not so long time, but perhaps I don't know a trainee might even don't get the right answer because the question is not formulated properly whatever. I think having the right expertise is exactly where you need to get that support in that senior levels, but yeah, definitely. I also use it, well, I try to use it more and more because we are getting very push even by my company. So they say, what are you using AI, whatever. And the more I get push, the more I use, but also it's very, very helpful, right? And even because it's challenging for chat dpt, right? For example, what type of the source of the information of chat dpt is internet. This is not contrasted, this is not up to date. We cannot rely on that. If you go to some platforms, tax-free platforms like tons of routers, we are using our IBFD, I guess, but I know tons of routers we use in my company and then they have a sort of chat dpt. So you ask question, specifically, and the question, you have an issue about BD in one country and the other, how you can optimize and so on. You get the answer and this is trustful source of information. So you get the information from trustful sources in tons of routers platform, right? So this is right information. So you can rely on the conclusions more or less, despite you will double check more things and so on. But for a quick response, I think it's super helpful at least in my view. It's really been very, very helpful. And for sure, you know, like power points, conversion and emails and all these things, you can, I mean, you can use until you are tired. So I think the more you use, the better the outcome is, right? And I also use chat dpt for typical questions, right? But I think when it comes to tax analysis, we need to be very careful with this chat dpt. Yeah. And I feel like interest is getting like there's so many more product coming out. And I'm really excited to see how like we change and how it like affects us overall. But thank you so much for your time today, Claire. It's been like great getting to know you, great conversation and feel like you have so much experience and like you've impacted so many people's life, especially in the tax sector. And we're having us up. Thank you for being on today. Thank you. Thank you Adam. Same place. Have a nice day. Bye. Yeah. Yeah. Bruce. I am. Bruce. Bruce. Bruce.