. Services – International Tax Services : VAT, Customs Law, Excise duties, environment (‘green’) taxes, Corporate income tax, transfer pricing, executive tax affairs
. Industries – Chemical & Energy industries, Industrial products, Consumer products, alcohol, tobacco, Luxury goods, Financial sector, Entertainment (internet travel agencies, media), High Tech
Our services are delivered right
as our customer wants and needs them. Behind the scene
LightHouse LHLF team is entirely focused on making its
customer life easier, from both a tax and a
business perspective.
Market Sectors - Industries
LightHouse LHLF helps customers
worldwide to comply with local and international tax
& Customs rules, while managing risks and protecting their own
clients' relationship.
LightHouse LHLF's New Way of managing
international tax related issues (and in particular
VAT, Customs & Excise duties and green taxes) is available to any business carrying out cross-border
transactions, whatever its location, size, needs and
business operating model.
As a result, we have been assisting businesses in the following market sectors: industrial products, consumer industrial products, consumer electronic products, luxury goods, retail, alcohol, tobacco, financial sector, real estate, entertainment (travel agencies, media), energy (green tech), chemical & oil industries, medical equipment, High Tech.
That said, it should be noted that
we have developed a specific know-how in relation to
the High Tech sector. In fact, one of the firm founders
has worked a number of years in Silicon Valley, California,
USA. From the semi-conductor industry, to internet businesses,
to software vendors, we know the business models of
High Tech companies, we know the people managing these
companies, and we have a pretty good knowledge of the
way of working with these companies.
Services
As described in the 'Firm Profile'
section of this website, we offer a wide range of international
tax services: VAT, Customs & Excise law, Corporate Income Tax, Transfer Pricing
and Executives Tax Affairs.
As we have developed a specific
know-how in relation to VAT and other similar transaction
taxes such as GST (Please see section 'What
we do?'), the details below are more in connection
with our VAT services.
Our other services are currently
being redrafted and will soon be detailed below —
Keeping in mind that these other services are a duplicate
of our VAT services, with minor variations due to the
different tax content.
Our services include the following: Hot-line services, Advisory services, Projects based services, Risks & Opportunities Audits, Training services, assistance to a tax or Customs audit, helping businesses talking to the tax & Customs authorities services.
• VAT hot-line 
A lot of companies face VAT issues
on an everyday basis. This requires assistance from
VAT specialists and VAT consultants. The cost of such
a daily assistance is a constraint, especially when
it is calculated on a time spent basis.
We therefore offer a VAT hot-line service to assist
our clients in identifying and resolving everyday VAT
and Customs issues throughout Europe and outside Europe,
at a fixed cost.
Practically speaking, the VAT hot-line
generally includes the following types of services:
- Any VAT or Customs issue arising
in Europe (i.e. coordination in the 27 EU countries,
plus Switzerland and Norway);
- The hot-line services will be
open to any entity of our client (i.e. subsidiary,
branch, head office, etc.) in the US or in Europe,
or wherever they are based — this is agreed upon
in the first place so that a proper communication
is implemented;
- The review of any document (e.g.
customer agreement, VAT recovery claim, etc.) in relation
to VAT, including our recommendations;
- From a communication channel
perspective, the hot-line services will include calls,
emails or even memos when required.
The good news regarding the VAT
Hot-Line service is that its cost is agreed upon prior
to starting it —we invoice a monthly fixed fee.
By paying such a monthly fixed fee,
our clients ensure that they can benefit from our EU
VAT expertise right when they need it —at no additional
cost. This also allows the client to anticipate the
cost of the assistance while making it easier to manage
the day-to-day VAT related exposures.
From a pure VAT perspective, such
a hot-line will help our clients ensuring that the VAT
law is properly applied (i.e. bookkeeping, invoicing,
filing, etc.). It will also allow reviewing documents
and making practical recommendations before making business
decisions.
In other words, it offers our client
a simple, quick, and time saving way of managing VAT,
hence controlling VAT related risks.
•
Advisory services
These services are aimed at assisting
our clients in dealing with specific issues arising
in the course of their business. It benefits to our
clients who do not want to commit to the 'Hot-line
service'.
LightHouse LHLF's advisory services
are the ultimate solutions to help our customers to:
- Calculate tax on every single
transaction, worldwide
- Determine the place of taxation;
Handle domestic and cross-border transactions
- Determine the rate applicable
- Consolidate real-time reporting;
Simplify tax data maintenance and storage
- Enable dramatic decrease of tax
exposures
- Enable companies to bill electronically,
using web services
When listening and delivering its
services to its customers, LightHouse LHLF systematically
takes into account the global picture of the business:
our advisory services meet the highest technical quality
while taking into account the legal, accounting, logistics,
operations and IT perspectives.
In other words we help our customers
transform a technical VAT solution into a business decision.
•
Projects based services
Based on the professional background
of its team, LightHouse LHLF has the ability to assist
its clients in implementing non-tax-driven new business
projects that have significant impact on the tax management
of operations.
We offer a variety of services to
help from a VAT perspective- our clients in the following
types of operations restructuring:
- Business model change (agent
vs. commissionaire, restructuring of distribution
channels, etc.),
- Intellectual property structuring
(localization of IP, etc.),
- Penetration of a new market,
- Transfer pricing adjustments,
- Implementation of ERP, etc.
LightHouse LHLF provides project
management and support throughout the project's lifecycle.
From the feasibility study to the implementation strategy
to the deployment and use among end-users. We understand
our clients operations —from their perspective,
whether tax or commercial or logistics or finance- and
ensure that VAT is not an obstacle but rather a source
of cash savings and better performance.
LightHouse LHLF team is composed
of experts with proven track record from both the industry
world and the VAT advisory world.
The team approach is pragmatic and
designed to deliver value to our customers so that they
directly benefit from our ground-breaking solutions
while facing significant changes in their organization.
In other words, we ensure that our
clients do not have to worry about VAT issues as we're
in charge and take responsibility, and deliver!
•
Training services
LightHouse LHLF team provides world
class training services through a variety of support.
We offer in-class training at our
Learning & Education center based in Paris, France.
We also offer classes on our customers'
site. Our professionals would then travel to our customer's
premises. This can be more effective and minimize travel
expenses and time away from the office for our clients'
staff while providing the staff with a top quality education.
In the near future, LightHouse LHLF
will also offer its customers the opportunity to attend
web-based training prior to or after in-class or on-site
training.
•
Assistance to a tax/Customs audit
Customs audits respond to a specific procedure, which relates to the independence of Customs law vis-à-vis Tax law. In many countries, Customs legal proceedings tend to implement the contradictory principle, guaranteed in France by the new Customs code. LightHouse LHLF has a significant experience in Tax & Customs audit and litigation.
•
Talking to the tax authorities
It goes without saying, but we still
want to stress this out: we are used to help our clients
in dealing with their relationships with the local tax
& Customs authorities.
From assisting the client in the
course of a tax audit, to negotiating a ruling or regularizing
a past (incorrect) position, we have the required experience
and background to ensure a proper and efficient communication
with the relevant authorities.
As with our other services, our
approach is pragmatic and made to meet our client expectation.
We are result oriented —which means that we believe
that reaching a negotiated settlement with the tax authorities
may be better than going to Court to try and win a case.
In two words, our clients have other
things to do than spending time talking to (fighting
with?) the tax authorities, so we help them going through
this part of their job as quickly and as (cash) efficiently
as possible.
That said, when a client has a strong
technical case, we have the ability to go to Court.
(And if the case is worth billions of dollars or the
technical issue has a significant impact on our client
operations -or on the entire industry, we'll share the
fame!). |
