whitepaper: Brands and tax planning

Brands have gradually been moving up the corporate agenda and today play a major role in the life of most successful companies. The financial role of brands has increasingly been recognised and accounting standards and tax legislation have been introduced that begin to recognise their growing importance and reflect the value that brands and other intangibles add to the bottom line.

In terms of accounting standards, Financial Reporting Standard 10 (“FRS10”) in the UK, effective since 28th December 1998, was one of the first standards to allow separate recognition of acquired intangible assets, provided that their fair values could be measured reliably. This was a sign of recognition from the accounting bodies of the real value those intangibles, especially brands, add.