2025 World Tax Guide | Regional profile (Indirect Tax)

Deloitte Canada’s Global Indirect Tax (GIT) and Global Trade Advisory (GTA) practitioners offer services in indirect tax and global trade compliance, advisory, recovery, and technology enablement. These services are designed to help businesses manage and enhance their indirect tax and global trade positions. The ability of our GIT/GTA practitioners to collaborate with Deloitte’s Audit & Assurance, Strategy, Risk & Transactions, and Technology & Transformation practitioners enables clients to confidently navigate the tax and business implications of their broader business challenges.

Deloitte Canada’s GIT practitioners provide clients with pragmatic guidance to meet their indirect tax responsibilities. This may involve complex supply chain issues, acquisitions and divestitures, audits and tax disputes, or process and technology requirements. Our practitioners, among other specializations, provide advice on harmonized sales tax, goods and services tax, provincial sales taxes, other excise taxes, carbon taxes, and fuel taxes. Through Deloitte’s global network of firms, we also provide guidance on value-added tax systems, US sales and use taxes, and other similar taxes.

Deloitte Canada’s GTA practitioners assist clients in developing global trade strategies and structuring global trade transactions. This helps clients appropriately manage customs duty payments and other international trade costs, secure duty recoveries when possible, and comply with legal and regulatory requirements in a practical and cost-effective manner that aligns with their business objectives.

Overpayments related to indirect taxes and accounts payable are difficult to quantify but can impact every aspect of an organization. A well-structured audit of overpayments presents a significant opportunity for cash recovery that can influence a company’s profitability. Our practitioners help clients control indirect tax costs by providing a thorough analysis of the organization’s transactions. This is crucial, but especially so in the context of accounting systems upgrades and changing legislation affecting all jurisdictions.

Deloitte Canada is part of the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited network of firms located in the Americas region. Our global network enables our practitioners to mobilize promptly and effectively involve local and regional indirect tax and global trade teams for projects, as needed. Our practitioners leverage the capabilities and strengths of a global practice, working with Audit & Assurance, Strategy, Risk & Transactions, and Technology & Transformation practitioners, to provide clients with comprehensive, tax-aligned business solutions.

A distinguishing feature of our services is our ability to assemble teams rapidly and effectively on a global scale. Deloitte Canada has the capacity to quickly gather a highly skilled team to meet a client’s requirements in numerous countries.

Various legislative changes across Canada have resulted in more entities being in the scope of Canadian sales tax than ever before. This, combined with a rise in audit activity, has greatly increased our workload. As we work with our clients to meet these obligations, we focus on providing innovative ideas, creating value, and improving efficiencies.

Deloitte’s Indirect Tax team in Canada is at the forefront of developing advanced AI-based tools that will revolutionize the world of indirect tax. We are committed to harnessing the power of AI to provide effective and efficient solutions for businesses. The team is working diligently to develop  tools that meet high standards of accuracy, reliability, security, and usability.

Key service offerings

• Advisory on indirect tax: In Canada, our team provides guidance on the harmonized sales tax, goods and services tax, and provincial sales taxes across all industry sectors. This includes specialized teams in both the Financial Services industry (FSI) and the public sector who possess extensive technical knowledge. On a global scale, our Deloitte network offers advice on value-added tax systems, US sales and use taxes, and other similar taxes;
• Indirect tax compliance, automation, and reporting;
• Recovery of indirect tax, accounts payable, crown royalties, carbon tax, and property tax;
• Global trade strategies, automation, export controls and compliance with import/export regulations, and audit support; and
• Tax technology consulting, which combines indirect tax technical experience with system knowledge and proficiency. This service is particularly beneficial for clients implementing new enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems or tax-specific “bolt-on” systems.

Wins

• Worked with a large energy and resources client to assess indirect tax provisioning technology and design considerations for the future implementation of an ERP system.
• Worked with numerous financial institutions to manage the impact of retroactive legislation, including advisory, recovery, dispute, and litigation mandates.
• Led collaboration with other Deloitte Tax & Legal teams and international Deloitte firms to update transfer pricing methodologies and review related intercompany supply documentation for several large FSI clients, resulting in significant long-term sales tax savings.

Awards

• ITR World Tax guide 2024 | Jurisdiction ranking: Deloitte Canada was one of the member firms recognized in the Americas region (Tier 1). Source: International Tax Review
• ITR World Tax guide 2024 | Indirect Tax leaders: Seven Deloitte Canada practitioners were recognized: Angela Grant (Toronto), D'Arcy Schieman (Toronto), Doug Myrden (Burlington), Laurent Moons (Montreal), Lisa Zajko (Toronto), Mara Belgrave (Burlington), and Renée Iori (Calgary). Source: International Tax Review
• ITR World Tax guide 2024 | Women in Tax leaders: Three Deloitte Canada practitioners were recognized: Angela Grant (Burlington), Mara Belgrave (Burlington), and Renée Iori (Calgary). Source: International Tax Review

Eminent leaders

• Mara Belgrave
• Angela Grant
• Laurent Moons
• Douglas Myrden
• Elizabeth Peon Valle
• Tamara Rozansky
• D’Arcy Schieman
• Lisa Zajko

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