Practice overview:
VAT, GST and other transaction-based taxes:
In a world hit by instability and crisis, the pace of change is tremendous prompting taxpayers to accelerate the digitalization of their indirect tax processes and reporting, work on their cash flow, while adapting their business models, organization and strategy. Troubled times also mean that many governments may be looking for ways to raise their revenues, leveraging indirect taxes to achieve their goals, with increasingly complex indirect tax regulations, a focus on tax audits and the fight against fraud. As a result, managing indirect taxes, keeping track of continuous change, investing in automation and keeping risk under control are key challenges for companies today.
Deloitte’s indirect tax specialists, including VAT, GST, and global trade advisory (encapsulating customs duties and export controls) personnel, is well informed and understands the nuances of regulations, the importance of deep industry knowledge and the growing importance and role of technology.
Highlight your regional network in a few sentences (what’s unique or different):
About Deloitte EMEA indirect tax:
Deloitte’s indirect tax practices in firms across EMEA includes approximately 318 offices, with 113 indirect tax partners and over 1,300 indirect tax professionals. This feeds into a global indirect tax network of more than 3,000 indirect tax professionals, working alongside and together with Deloitte’s other service lines, to bring broad scale tax aligned business compliance solutions. Their stated mission is to deploy the right industry focused local and regional teams quickly to suit the needs of each client.
Key differentiators include: a focus on industry specialism; a unified strategy and quality standards’; a suite of Deloitte proprietary indirect tax tools, software and products; and a network of virtual and physical Centres of Excellence (COEs) supporting indirect tax compliance and global trade advisory. These are aligned with Deloitte’s technology platforms globally, offering a wide scope of integrated indirect tax and global trade compliance, consulting, and automation services.
Offerings
- Indirect Tax advisory including Value Added Tax (VAT) and Goods and Services Tax (GST) as well as other transaction-based taxes
- Indirect Tax compliance and reporting
- Indirect Tax automation
- Global Trade Advisory and Compliance (GTA)
Can you speak to the indirect tax growth in your region (why/how it’s affected the business):
For the first time in a long period, the EU VAT system saw change this year with the implementation of the ‘Four Quick Fixes’. This has led to many discussions with companies reviewing their supply chains, business models and processes. This is the first step towards a further evolution in 2021, affecting operators active in the e-commerce arena (platforms, resellers, and intermediaries), requiring Deloitte practices to focus on developing automation solutions in this field. In parallel, Brexit activity has been going-on during the year, companies being still alert and reflecting on the VAT and customs implications of the UK leaving the EU.
More than ever, Deloitte firms in EMEA have been investing in various technologies to help companies track, monitor and handle the various local country legislative changes in the region. Continuing last years trends, the evolution of Real Time Reporting, SAF-T requirements, Making Tax Digital, e-invoicing platforms and other technology obligations required companies to invest in reorganizing their indirect tax function and compliance activities. This means shifting from a “push’ (traditional periodical compliance and reporting combined with a tax control framework) to an increased “pull” approach (tax authorities requiring relevant indirect tax data set, almost continuously and in real-time pulling in data from companies systems). The focus is therefore very much around data and tax technology, and actively analysing gaps, to explain the difference between reported VAT and VAT data position.
Finally and since the Covid-19 global crisis, emphasis has been put on assisting companies navigating through the storm, focusing efforts around the various indirect tax related measures taken by the EU and other governments to ease taxpayers’ situation, advising and assisting to help cash flow, liquidity, process efficiency and business continuity related strategies. The expected next stage will be to help companies to recover, supporting them developing their medium- and long-term indirect tax strategies.
How is your region innovative? Speak of digital capabilities:
Technology
Deloitte’s indirect tax practices in EMEA have combined their technical knowhow with the technology capabilities of Deloitte’s Consulting professionals. This has resulted in deep tax technology and analytics capabilities.
Indirect Tax Compliance (“ITC”) is a Deloitte Belgium proprietary compliance technology offering, designed and developed to support centralized delivery of global indirect tax compliance, enabling increased efficiency and quality in the preparation process for indirect tax returns. It covers more than 80 countries and a wide variety of reporting requirements, including Real Time Reporting, SAF-T requirements, Making Tax Digital, e-invoicing, etc. In addition to these features, which can be customized, ITC offers analytics capabilities, management reporting and data visualization through a dashboard that provides process and trend analysis information.
Global VAT/GST Radar is an analytics solution, which enables companies to rigorously review the quality of their VAT data and assess potential deficiencies in their VAT compliance processes through a provisioned system of predefined checks and balances. The solution automates and streamlines large data files into one central, intuitive dashboard. With this tool, businesses can identify and go on to assess VAT risks and opportunities.
The related Global Trade Radar is a similar analytics solution using data sourced from customs authorities to produce detailed insightful customs analytics across multiple jurisdictions in one dashboard. Opportunities like cost-savings, repayments and risks such as compliance weaknesses are identified, and insights summarized through a series of interactive reports.
Regarding Customs & Global Trade, Deloitte recently launched its proprietary Trade Classifier, which uses Artificial Intelligence and cognitive technologies in the field of Harmonized Tariff Schedule classification, a central process for assessing customs duties and managing customs compliance. Besides customs, this tool may also be used for VAT rate determination and Intrastat preparation.
In the field of indirect tax knowledge, Deloitte has recently launched its global Knowledge platform, an innovative way to capture, gather, edit and manage VAT changes taking place around the world, directly feeding into a series of knowledge related deliverables, including a Knowledge Portal, a single site for Deloitte’s indirect tax practitioners and key clients to access a wealth of indirect tax expertise and tools. Tools such as:
- Tax-I, an artificial intelligence powered predictive solution analysing court case decisions;
- Sam-VATbot, the Deloitte VAT chatbot which helps determine VAT treatments, analyse indirect tax cases and transactions in a very innovative way;
- Indirect Tax Atlas – Electronically Supplied Services, a platform to help users to understand enacted and upcoming changes in the taxation of digital services. It is web-based and includes an interactive map showing where digital rules apply with functionality to compare digital VAT/GST rules across jurisdictions.
- PxS, an automated VAT solution assisting partially exempt businesses with VAT analysis and modelling, enabling allocations, sectors, and recovery methods to be modelled based on the impact analysis to the overall VAT position. Deloitte is currently developing a reporting module connected to PxS as to enable automating the preparation and filing of Insurance Premium Tax returns.
Besides that, Deloitte teams across EMEA are working on various other business applications, such as VAT Cube, the chain analyser, Brexit related risk solutions, blockchain solutions, and a track on trade customs tool.
Recent wins
- Large Operate Tax transformation project, which involves taking over the indirect tax function of a company across the globe, taking care of compliance and related obligations on its behalf, and making technology investments, process improvements as well as responding to (internal) advisory requests from that company’s business. In effect Deloitte is replacing the entire (internal) team in all its aspects and roles.
- Managing the indirect tax compliance in 100+ countries for a global company in the transport sector.
- Reviewing the entire supply chain of a large consumer products company, handling customs related compliance and procedures connected with UK flows post Brexit, using Deloitte UK’s recently set up Trade Bureau.
Awards
- In International Tax Review’s 2020 European Regional Tax Awards, Deloitte again won a larger number of awards than any other firm, with 21 awards. Some of the pivotal wins are mentioned below:
Regional Awards:
o European Tax Firm of the Year (for the fourth consecutive year);
o European Compliance & Reporting Firm of the Year (for the fourth consecutive year);
o European Tax Innovator of the Year
National Tax awards: Austria, Central and Eastern Europe, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, Ukraine
- In (ITR) 2019 European Regional Tax awards, Deloitte won a larger number of awards than any other firm, with 17 awards in total.
o Deloitte won the 2019 European Court of Justice Indirect Tax Firm of the Year
- In ITR’s 2018 European Regional Tax awards, Deloitte won the Tax Compliance and Reporting Firm of the Year and the European Tax Firm of the Year.
- In ITR’s 2017 European Regional Tax awards, Deloitte won more awards than any other firm with 24 awards in total.
- As of 2018, Deloitte has more leaders listed in ITR’s Indirect Tax Leaders Guide than any other firm with 162 leaders.
- Deloitte has been a Tier 1 Tax advisor in the Gulf region since 2010 according to the International Tax Review World Tax Rankings.
Leaders
- Kendra Hann, Deloitte Global Leader - Indirect Tax
- Kristine Dozier, Deloitte Global Leader - Trade Advisory
- Johan Hollebeek, Deloitte Global Leader - EMEA Trade Advisory COE
- Rogier Vanhorick, Deloitte Global Leader - Indirect Tax Digital
- Olivier Hody, Deloitte NSE Leader - Indirect Tax
Contact Details:
Phone: +44 20 7007 3814
Email: khann@deloitte.co.uk
Twitter: @Deloitte
Website: Deloitte.com/tax
Please find Deloitte's Global Profile here: https://www.itrworldtax.com/Firm/Deloitte/Profile/89#profile
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