Max Warlow
& Associates Pty Ltd
GST
Risk Assessment Services.
Max Warlow and Associates P/L governing
director is Max Warlow, a FCPA and ACA.
Max Warlow & Associates Pty Ltd was
established quite a few years ago as a boutique firm to provide "indirect
tax" advice to industry, government and other accounting firms. With the
introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) the firm has undergone a
natural progression to specialising in providing cost efficient GST services,
particularly GST risk assessments.
To provide its GST risk assessment services
Max Warlow & Associates Pty Ltd has expanded to include under its
"umbrella" a Group of highly regarded independent consultants, who
formerly have either been Directors or Senior Managers in major accounting
firms. Between them they have a combined total of over 160 years of providing
indirect tax advice at a senior level. They have conducted over 1,100 GST
seminars, many GST risk assessments/reviews/audits (including State and Local
Government organisations) provided in-depth GST technical advice, handled
numerous taxation Court and AAT cases,
been on a number of major decision making committees, and greatly influenced
indirect taxation issues over many years.
Max Warlow & Associates Pty Ltd is unique
among accounting and legal firms offering GST services, particularly GST review
type work, in that all members of the Group had many years
hands on experience working within the Australian Taxation Office
investigations/audit area prior to moving to public practice. Between them the
Team have 80 years of Australian Taxation Office audit
experience.
The structure of the firm means that
overheads which add significantly to an accounting firms fees, are kept to a
minimum. As a result, competitively attractive hourly, daily or weekly rates
can be offered to clients requiring GST services. This is particularly so with
GST risk assessments where daily or weekly rates normally apply. There is scope
to make these rates even more attractive where efficiencies and economies of
scale can be obtained with engagements for the review of multiple similar type
entities.
It is important to appreciate that while the
fee levels are very competitive, Max Warlow & Associates Pty Ltd does not
offer cut-price fees. In addition to not being loaded with excessive overheads,
neither are the fees loaded with excessive partner
profits. Thus, there is no need to "cut corners" to ensure
assignments can be squeezed into an already underquoted figure which means that
the work undertaken is fully serviced. This is important with GST risk
assessments
where
the quality of the assessment is directly related to the depth and breadth of
the review.
The Group members are Max Warlow, Peter Rigg,
Rod Hill, John Haig, Ken Murley, and Steve Gooden. It is of relevance to note
here that prior to being associated with Max Warlow & Associates Pty Ltd ,
Ken Murley, who is the Teams GST risk assessment leader was in charge of the
PricewaterhouseCoopers Victorian Government GST Services Group.
Brief details of each individual Team members
experience is set out below.
Max A Warlow is a Fellow of CPA
Australia and has practicing certificates with both
CPA Australia and the Chartered Accountants,
Max was on the CPA's Victorian State Taxes
representative on the State Taxes Consultative Council for 21 years. He was
also a member of the CPA's Indirect Tax Cell and was a member of the CPA's
Divisional Council. In the early 80's Max was recruited by an International
Chartered firm to establish its indirect taxes practice.
Max has conducted many training programs
seminars and workshops for industry, taxpayers, and accountants in practice and
their professional bodies. He is regularly invited to address CPA
and Chartered tax study groups and has been a prolific writer of technical
articles. Max is a joint author of the highly regarded "Goods and
Services Tax Guide". He is also a 'regular' on talk back radio and
television.
Max worked at the ATO for 7 years during
which time he conducted numerous ATO Sales Tax audits in addition to drafting
numerous decisions involving representations from Ministers, Government
Departments etc.,
Max then was promoted to the Prices
Justification Tribunal where he was responsible for analysing financial
information concerning proposed price increases.
Max formed a joint venture company with a
firm of solicitors to undertake over 800 gst
educational seminars for the not for profit sector. These seminars were
conducted all over
Max is also regarded as one of the States foremost
consultants in respect of pay-roll tax and WorkCover.
Email: maxwarlow@bigpond.com
Peter Rigg (Diploma
Business Studies - Accounting) has for the past 20 years worked for the
'Big 5' in the Chartered Accounting profession as a Manager/Principal dealing
with indirect taxes and more specifically, GST, Payroll Tax, WorkCover and Sales Tax.
In that time Peter has acted for many
taxpayers including the NAB, Ericissons, Gillette, Skilled
Engineering, plus numerous small businesses and accounting practices.
Prior to joining the profession Peter worked
in the ATO for some 17 years predominantly in the Sales Tax audit area carrying
out comprehensive investigations of taxpayer compliance.
Email: prigg@hotmail.com
Rod Hill is a CPA and a
Fellow of the Taxation Institute of Australia. Rod has become associated
with Senserrick Warlow after 17 years with the Australian
Taxation Office carrying out Taxpayer compliance audits and 15 years as a
Principal Taxation Adviser with one of the Big 5 major
public chartered accounting firms
Rod specialises in GST, Payroll Tax, Stamp
Duty and Land Tax and is also a regular public speaker
and contributor to the press on taxation matters. Rod has advised
major public companies, small businesses and accounting firms.
Email: rod_w_hill@hotmail.com.au
Ken
Murley
has a Bachelor of Business (Accounting) and is a member of CPA Australia. Ken
has been working in the Indirect Tax for 33 years. His career commenced
in the Australian Taxation Office in 1961 where he spent 13 years in the audit
section. In 1982 Ken joined Coopers & Lybrand (now
PricewaterhouseCoopers) as Manager, Indirect Taxes. In 1988 he was
appointed Director, Indirect Taxes, a position he held until leaving that firm
in November 2001. As part of that role he was the PricewarerhouseCoopers
GST Director in charge of servicing State and Local Government entities. This
included the provision of technical advice and managing and assisting in the
presentation of GST seminars for those entities, including the Department of
Human Services. Post implementation of GST he has arranged and participated in
a number of GST reviews of the activities of State and Local Government
entities.
His private sector clients came from a broad
range of industries including telecommunications, defence, pharmaceutical's,
software development, manufacturing, hospitality and retailing. He was also
involved in the implementation of GST with these clients and has carried out
several post implementation reviews in this sector.
Email: kenmurley@brp.com.au
Stephen Gooden has a Bachelor of Business (Accounting) and is a Fellow of both CPA
Australia and the Tax Institute of Australia
After 17 years working in the
indirect tax area in the ATO, Steve commenced as a Director for a major
chartered accounting firm, a position he held for some 10 years.
In 1995 Steve
established his own Indirect Taxes consultancy practice.
Steve is also a former State President (WA)
of CPA Australia and has been on numerous committees involving indirect taxes.
Steve specialists in GST, Pay-roll Tax, Superannuation Guarantee, incentives to
business, etc.
Email: sgooden@arach.net.au
·
John Haig
John
Haig is
an indirect taxes adviser to some of Australia's largest public companies, and
also to numerous small and medium-sized enterprises, and their accountants.
John specialises in the more complex GST and wine tax issues, as well as
supporting clients whilst they are undergoing ATO audit. He is a member of CPA
Australia, a member of the ICAA's national indirect taxes sub-committee and a
fellow of the TIA.
After 17 years with the ATO, a further 11
years as a senior consultant and tax director with a "big 4"
international accounting firm and 5 years as a tax director with a boutique
accountancy firm, John formed John Haig Pty
Ltd, an indirect tax consultancy offering high quality service at affordable
rates, in 2003.
John is skilled and experienced in providing
clients with transactional advice and GST awareness training tailored to their
specific needs, conducting negotiations and arranging settlements with the ATO
and formulating private ruling requests and notices of objection for lodgement
with the ATO.
Email: jhaig@hfpartners.com.au
This
would have to be the most experienced Group ever assembled. Why deal with
'juniors' or pay excessive rates to access senior persons.
The
Group has substantial experience in conducting seminars for clients, in-house
training and industry groups. We also can produce Manuals, Guides
etc.
No
job is too big or too small.
We
understand the pressure of being in public practice and how you really cannot
be an expert in everything (despite what your clients may think).
We
are here to assist you and work together to resolve your problems.
Please feel free to
contact Max Warlow & Associates
to discuss any problems etc we may be able to help resolve.