TMF Group’s contribution to insurance industry tax calculation
Worldwide impact of the IPT Quote steering committee
The IPT Quote steering committee, run by TMF Group on behalf of a cross-industry membership, plays a key role in the highly technical and competitive world of multinational insurance. Paul Hampton, TMF Group’s head of IPT services and chair of the committee, explains how it works and why it matters.
IPT Quote is TMF Group’s global insurance tax database and calculation engine, providing consistent tax calculations for risk managers, brokers and insurers across complex and evolving multinational insurance programmes. Both the calculation tool and its database need to follow a continuing development path which closely mirrors the changing needs of the industry.
For the past eight years, the IPT Quote steering committee has been bringing together major industry players to help TMF Group decide what provisions need refining and which new capabilities need implementing.
Many founder members remain committed participants, having made important and sustained individual contributions to the Committee’s work. It has been involved in some of the most critical system developments, including:
- The IPT Quote mobile app lets users on the go check global rates across multiple lines of insurance business. (Available from the Apple and Google app stores.)
- A legislation database incorporates legal references into the rate check function for all EU/EEA taxes. Other jurisdictions will be added in due course.
- Financial interest clause capabilities calculate insurance taxes related to the financial interest clauses in multinational insurance programmes.
- A dual stamp function allows tax schedules to be split across defined country groups, for example EEA and rest of world. (Prompted by Brexit this functionality supports UK insurers setting up new operations in EEA jurisdictions.)
- Enhanced data capture functionality makes sure that all the supporting data needed for additional tax office reporting is captured.
IPT Quote clients are automatically granted committee membership. The quarterly meetings in London and annual events in Brighton and Frankfurt, attract the industry’s senior tax figures from broking houses, insurance companies and captive insurers from the UK and Europe.
The debates and discussions focus on keeping IPT Quote up-to-date, consistent and logical as insurance premium tax regulation, legislation and market practices change. Networking helps to bring topical and common concerns and challenges before the Committee.