Sure, keeping tax liabilities to a minimum is important, but when it comes right down to it, the crucial thing is making sure the returns are timely and accurate. That’s according to 41 percent of respondents in a Grant Thornton survey of CFOs and senior comptrollers released today.

Another 21 percent said that timely, accurate financial reporting is the most important priority for the tax department. In contrast, 16 percent cited cash tax savings or deferrals, and just 12 percent cited the overall effective tax rate.

If you’re thinking that this paints a very different picture from what seems to be the standard regulator’s-eye view of companies as tax-crafty manipulators, aggressively chasing every loophole in the code, Grant Thornton’s Randy Robason would agree with you. GT’s press release for the survey includes this great quote from Robason, national partner in charge of tax accounting and risk advisory services:

“We’d like to see Congress and regulators put as much focus on helping scrupulous businesses navigate an increasingly tricky tax code as they do on so-called aggressive tax planning.”

Amen to that. But do the survey results also suggest that senior finance leaders still see tax as essentially a nonstrategic, fill-in-the-forms function?

I asked Robason if there’s a disjunction between how CFOs perceive the tax department’s opportunities to add value and how tax directors see it. He concedes that there is a disconnect today, but emphasizes that the latest moves by the SEC and the IRS (e.g., the Service’s increased attention to uncertain tax positions; see my blog here) are forcing companies to recognize that managing risk around the tax function is critical to performance.

“There’s a renewed focus on the board’s responsibility in setting guidelines around tax risk, and I think that the end result will be to draw the tax function more into the inner realm of key decision-makers in the organization,” he notes. “Managing risk in the future will be seen as but one more area where the tax function adds value.”

Robason doesn’t expect any retreat by tax directors from their attempts to establish a more strategic role, and he does expect companies to embrace that effort: “No director wants to read in the paper that his company has tarnished their reputation by going too far in attempting to minimize taxes. But at the same time, there will be a renewed focus on paying no more than their fair share.” ###