'Tis the season for anything but a tax discussion
This being the festive season, I thought it time for the second annual "Tax Watch Awards" column. Publishing schedules of this being only once every two weeks means that you get the columnist with the beard in the column before Christmas instead of me, but I suppose that is only being seasonal.
In no particular order, we present the following:
Job interview of the year:
Candidate: I'm really interested in joining your compensation consulting group.
Interviewer (me): Why's that?
C: In my company, we had some consultants do a project reviewing our pay structure and it seemed really interesting.
I: What have you done to expand your knowledge in that area?
C: How do you mean?
I: Have you read any books on the subject?
C: No.
I: Any magazine or periodical articles?
C: No.
I: How do you know that you're interested in it?
C: Because these guys made it look like it was interesting. And anyway, I hear Arthur Andersen offers excellent training.
I: Yes, but only for candidates who get through the interviews.
Most unlikely place to find a reader of the column award:
My best friend Jonathan's wife is a conference organizer, and told me that she went to a conference of conference organizers in Switzerland where she was talking to someone who had organized a conference in Poland. Tania said, "We have a friend who's a tax adviser in Poland," to which the other lady replied, "Not the legendary WBJ tax columnist Peter Ferrigno? I read his column all the time." Many thanks to Jonathan for dropping that into the conversation with the lads one night!
Banging your head against a brick wall award:
Last week's WBJ had enough about the president vetoing the reduction in personal income tax rates to mean that it is fresh in the minds of most readers.
Also, you are all aware of my rule of not being rude to the politicians of this country, which has been such a good home for me these last six and a half years. Therefore, I will not make any further comment.
When is it actually going to happen, then, award:
This award goes to the entire employee pension scheme law amendments, which have been likely to be passed by Parliament "next month," every month since February. Until then, Poland sits and waits for employers to give their employees decent pension programs.
Outrageous attempt at a freebie award:
Goes to my colleagues Marcin Ciemniewski and Marcin Wojewodka. Having suggested to them that their Polish pension reform expertise would be very useful for other countries in the region and that there may be a chance of their being called upon to share their know-how in this area, the "flying Marcins" found that Hong Kong is scheduled to introduce a similar system at the end of 2000, and suggest that they need to go there for a bit of knowledge sharing. Thanks, boys, I think someone does need to go do you remember who is actually listed as being overall group head? His initials are PF ...
Reader of the year award:
Conversation with a distinguished local venture capitalist at a recent drinkies, a.k.a. happy hour, cocktail hour.
DLVC: I really don't know how you manage to be so amusing and entertaining quite so frequently about a subject that most people find very boring. The last one made me laugh very much indeed.
I: Thank you, I'm glad you enjoy the column.
DLVC: Oh, that as well, but I was thinking about the invoices you sent me.
Peter Ferrigno is a tax manager in the Warsaw office of Arthur Andersen.
