Tax Strategy

Document owner: Andrew Crawford (Assistant Manager, Accounting Department)
Approved by: Kilseog Hwang (General Manager)
Published: 28/12/2017

The Korea Development Bank London Branch (“the Branch”) is the sole UK representative of the Korea Development Bank, headquartered in Seoul, Republic of Korea.

The Branch is the European hub for the Korea Development Bank global network, offering diverse financial services in the areas of corporate finance, trade finance, derivatives, securities investments, and treasury.

This document sets out our aims and practices with regards to UK taxation, published in compliance with Schedule 19 of the Finance Act 2016.

The Branch is a signatory to the Code of Practice on Taxation of Banks and adheres to the principles established therein.

Responsibility for the Branch’s tax affairs rests with the Senior Accounting Manager, who reports directly to the Branch General Manager and the governing Risk Management Committee (“RMC”). The Senior Manager delegates day-to-day management of tax matters to the Assistant Manager. The Branch does not have a dedicated in-house tax team.

Our Head Office is not involved in managing the Branch’s tax affairs.

Tax-related policies and procedures are detailed in the Branch’s ‘Accounting Policy & Procedures’ and ‘Accounting Operational Procedures’ documents. These documents are updated regularly subject to the approval of Head Office or the RMC, and are made available to all staff through our internal network.

The tax function of the Branch is subject to regular internal audits.

The Branch aims to be compliant with both the letter and the spirit of UK tax legislation, and as such adopts a conservative approach to tax risk.

Our tax planning motives are to lower our tax risk profile as much as possible, retain simple tax arrangements, and refrain from entering into any tax arrangements or undertake tax structuring. Neither the General Manager nor the Head Office sets targets for tax management and tax is excluded from measurements of Branch performance; no target tax rate is applied. All trading activity with other group members is conducted on arms-length terms, following the group Fund Transfer Price policy set by our Head Office.

To help mitigate risk, the Branch generally engages with external consultants for advice on tax issues, who may be empowered to act as our agent. We rely on these advisors to help us identify and understand potential tax risks and to ensure that our submissions to HMRC are timely, accurate, and complete. Any filings made by agents on our behalf are reviewed within the Branch prior to submission to ensure consistency with the information provided.

Where tax risks are identified, competent staff will research the issue in depth and report to the General Manager. Our response is determined on a case-by-case basis depending on the scale and scope of the identified risk.

The Branch strives to offer transparency to HMRC.

We endeavour to respond to any enquiries in a timely manner and with full disclosure. For any complex matters, we will usually refer to a competent external advisor to help ensure that our response will be sufficient.

Branch staff will approach HMRC for guidance when new legislation is released or to seek clarity in general, as appropriate.