KPMG organizes KPMG MESA Tax Conference
Confab addresses impact of emerging tax regulations Egypt threatens Apple
DUBAI/KUWAIT CITY, Dec 12: Recent developments in the local, regional and global tax environment, including a growing focus on transparency and technological demands, are putting pressure on organizations to adapt to new norms. Against this backdrop, KPMG held the KPMG MESA Tax Conference to discuss issues and challenges currently facing tax functions in the GCC.
Established tax experts in the region discussed the impact of new regulations on businesses, including Jane McCormick, Global Head of Tax & Legal, KPMG International, who provided a global perspective on tax; and Dr Rasheed M. Al-Qenae, Head of Tax, KPMG Middle East and South Asia, Ashok Hariharan, Head of Tax, KPMG Lower Gulf and Wadih Abou Nasr, Head of Tax and Zakat, KPMG in Saudi Arabia and Levant cluster, who provided an overview of the economic and fiscal outlook and issues to be considered in the coming years.
Following the introduction of VAT in the UAE and KSA on Jan 1, 2018, both the Federal Tax Authority (FTA) and the General Authority of Zakat and Tax (GAZT) continue to release new guidance, as other GCC member states also gear up for the introduction of VAT.
The MESA Tax Conference addressed a number of issues related to VAT management, including automation and challenges, audits by the authorities, treatment for transactions with other GCC member states, lessons learnt from the 2018 implementation in UAE and KSA and the way forward.
The conference also focused on the impact of technology and how tax departments can evolve in the modern context. This includes introducing new technology capabilities that can give tax and finance leaders an edge in managing regulatory change, streamlining processes and leveraging the value of data.
Dr Rasheed Al Qenae, Managing Partner, KPMG Kuwait and Head of Tax KPMG MESA , said: “We can see that this conference is focusing on three main topics; highlighting that tax authorities are becoming extremely precise in their targeting and enforcement, ie, mechanism is already there to discovering non tax compliance. The second focus is technology and automation, which should be introduced in all business department in an including tax. Finally, the focus on staff skill set, tax new technology and digitalization as the next step to invest in and to implement across our organizations”.
Zubair Patel, Head of Tax, KPMG in Kuwait also spoke about the ever-increasing risk for corporates in Kuwait with respect to non-compliance in relation to tax retention adding: “We are noticing that Retention still remains the core issue of discussion for foreign and local corporates in Kuwait from the tax perspective. Whilst, the Retention regulations still remains the same , the Ministry of Finance (MoF) in terms of the pure supply arrangements have indicated that corporates engaging with their suppliers should retain from the supply value unless the suppliers obtain a No Objection Letter (NOL) from the MoF confirming both their status as pure supplier as well as authorizing release of tax retention.
Jane McCormick, Global Head of Tax & Legal, KPMG International,
Photo from the event
said: “The digitization of tax and the emergence of data driven technologies has changed how tax is collected and administered, how organizations manage their tax obligations and the ways in which tax departments need to work. Effective data management is at the core of both solutions and challenges for organizations as they look to not only comply, but also make better business decisions. The MESA Tax Conference addressed the impact of the new reforms and offered clear approaches and data-driven solutions for businesses to adapt and succeed in a post-VAT environment.”
Transfer pricing is another area that is expected to put even more demands on tax teams in the coming years, as countries implement transfer-pricing recommendations arising from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS). The conference also offered insights on Global Transfer Pricing developments and the critical role tax teams play in structuring the transfer pricing function within an organization. CAIRO, Dec 12, (AFP): Egypt has warned it will take legal action against Apple if the US tech giant fails to remove alleged “restrictions” on local distributors within 60 days.
A decree threatening action was published in the official gazette on Monday after accusations from Egypt’s Competition Authority that Apple had violated the country’s competition law.
It said the company had “isolated the Egyptian market geographically” by restricting sales to distributors in the country from their counterparts abroad.
The authority also alleged Apple had restricted “parallel imports” of its products on the Egyptian market.
“Apple has managed, through its marketing strategy and contracts, to ban all forms of parallel imports and banned distributors generally and authorised ones in Egypt particularly from importing from any authorised distributor outside Egypt,” the statement read.
According to the authority, Apple’s actions had caused an “unjustified” increase in prices of its products in Egypt, exceeding those in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait as well as the United States.