Tax Director · Europe

Interim tax director in Europe

Helping American companies forward

American companies in Europe need a fiscal partner with great credentials and a proven international track record. I am Martin Manders and I am an embedded tax director that meets both. Not just a consultant, but also a direct implementer.

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Martin Manders

Tax Director · Europe

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Years international tax

Years as group tax director

Regional carve-outs

Manders Tax

MARTIN MANDERS'ROLE

Tax directing requires trust, decisiveness and involvement.

American companies often run real operations on this side of the Atlantic, with entities, people, audits and the occasional restructuring, while the tax team sits several time zones away. Most days that works fine. On the days it doesn't, it helps to have someone here.

That's the part I take on. Not an advisor sending invoices by the hour, but someone on your team who lives nearby, knows the people, and stays with a matter until it's properly settled.

HOW I WORK

This is how I direct your taxes.

Part of your team

I'm part of your team rather than a name on a vendor list. I sit with your European entities, join the meetings that matter, and look after your interests the way a colleague down the hall would.

Bridging two sides of the planet

I help your head office and the European side understand each other, whether that's tax authorities, controllers or advisors, so things don't get lost somewhere between Houston and Hamburg.

Seeing it through

A good memo is easy to write and easy to forget. I prefer to stay around until the structure is built, the filing is in, and the audit is closed. My goal is to provide a definitive solution for your tax necessities.

Over thirty years of tax experience.

✓International tax structuring

✓Transfer pricing

✓M&A and carve-outs

✓Tax Control Framework

✓Tax audits & disputes

✓Compliance & reporting

My background

A track record, not a résumé.

Thirty years in international tax, twenty of them in-house. For twelve of those years I was Group Tax Director at Stork, the European industrial group now owned by Fluor, a €1.5 billion business with 18,000 people across more than fifty countries, where I led five regional carve-outs spanning Europe, the UK, the Americas, Australia and New Zealand, and the Middle East.

Before Stork I worked at Reed Elsevier, now RELX, and earlier on the advisory side at BDO and CROP. Different seats, the same work: understanding a company from the inside, and staying with it through the parts that are hard to plan for.

Stork's parent company

Europe United Kingdom Americas Australia & New Zealand Middle East

Expertise

The kind of work I take on.

International tax structuring

Holding structures, financing flows and treaty positions that hold up when the operations and the people behind them are real.

Transfer pricing

Policies and documentation built to survive the audit, not just to satisfy the file.

M&A and carve-outs

Tax leadership through acquisitions, divestments and the messy separation work that follows the signing.

Tax control framework

Governance the board can sign off on and the tax authority can trust, built with you, not handed over in a binder.

Tax audits

Sitting down with the inspector and looking after the relationship, ideally long before anything turns into a dispute.

Compliance & reporting

Returns, provisions and reporting run on time across every European jurisdiction you operate in.

Crisis & resolution

Facing a European tax audit? You need presence, not a memo.

A notice from a European tax authority rarely comes at a convenient time. When the Dutch Belastingdienst opens an audit or wants answers within forty-eight hours, an hourly advisory firm will offer to draft a technical position paper. What you actually need is someone in the room who can read the situation, take the friction out of it, and manage the process from the inside.

I step in as your primary contact for the local tax authority. Thirty years of leading complex audits, from routine corporate queries to high-stakes regional carve-outs, has taught me how European inspectors think, how they work, and how to settle matters properly before they turn into multi-year disputes.

✓

On-site audit leadership

I manage the interactions, interviews and formal data requests with the local inspector directly, on the ground.

✓

Proactive de-escalation

Resolving technical disagreements at the audit stage, protecting your timeline and keeping matters out of costly litigation.

✓

Credible authority relations

Decades of professional, relationship-driven dealings with authorities, built on genuine technical respect.

Who I work with

The companies I like to work for.

I take on one or two companies at a time, so the fit matters. These are the companies where I tend to do my best work.

American at heart, busy in Europe

US-headquartered companies with real operations on this side of the Atlantic: entities, people and obligations that do not pause for the time difference.

A capable team, stretched thin

A strong tax group at home that simply cannot be in two places at once, and would rather have a colleague in Europe than another stack of advice.

In a moment of change

Companies in the middle of something: an expansion, an acquisition, a carve-out, or an audit that needs a steady hand close by.

Presence over paperwork

People who would rather have someone in the room than a thicker proposal, and who measure the year by what actually got done.

Contact

Discuss your European operations.

No pitch and no commitment. If something in Europe is on your mind, reach out and we'll talk it through. Often a half-hour call is enough to tell whether I'm the right person to help.

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