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If you receive an email resembling a familiar email format and address and saying the Covid-19 pandemic assistance fund would be released today, and it asks you to log on through a link to know more about the fund’s computation, what would you do?

“Tale as old as time” — this now-famous beginning lyric from “Beauty and the Beast” can also applied to the authority of the commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to review, allocate and distribute the income and deductions of related-party transactions, both cross-border and domestic. This include intra-firm transactions between related parties to determine the appropriate revenue and taxable income. Few people would know that this authority is now 81 years old; it was introduced on June 15, 1939 under Section 44 (now Section 50) of Commonwealth Act 466 or the “National Internal Revenue Code.” Let us recount the notable events and facts on this authority’s implementation and evolution.

According to a recent Grant Thornton United Kingdom (UK) report on e-learning, around a quarter of all corporate training in the UK was conducted online. While this has been increasing steadily every year, a large proportion of training has remained face-to-face.

As often associated with the comic book superhero Spiderman is the statement: “With great power comes great responsibility.” In addition to my leadership role as a Partner for Advisory Services and the head of the Knowledge Management Group at P&A Grant Thornton, I am taking on new professional roles with the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA) – as chair of the Metro Manila Region (MMR) Council and as national vice president for public practice.

Businesses that can effectively anticipate threats and opportunities are likely to be more resilient. They outperform their rivals and especially so during times of extreme turbulence.

Quoting a famous movie line walang personalan, trabaho lang, the new work-from-home reality proved these two concepts as inseparable — that we can cook, play with our kids, or book a Grab meal while working. This shift has strengthened our resiliency as a people and our culture of being a communal society. In our household, we assign tasks among household members: one takes care of marketing within the budget and chores are rotated among family members. In my case, I have never missed our 8:00 dinner — the same time at which our barangay siren sounds to indicate the start of curfew.

As we approach the start of the school year on August 24, most schools and higher education institutions (HEIs) and teachers, students and parents are still confused about what education will look like in the new normal.

The economic and market environment today is characterized by the unprecedented levels of uncertainty brought by the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic. Stock markets around the world are experiencing dramatic declines and extreme volatility as investors sell off their equity investments and flee to assets considered safe havens (e.g., gold and government debt). The full extent of the economic and business disruptions, duration of the crisis, time to recover, shape of recovery and possibility of a second wave of Covid-19 infections are still unknown. All these factors have made valuations challenging.