Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) has organised multiple sessions here on Friday to discuss current trends of indirect taxes across South Asia and the UAE and shared insights on the effective implementation of value added tax (VAT). The sessions were lead by Chas Roy-Chowdhury, head of global taxation, and Arif Masud Mirza, ACCA Head of Policy for MENASA to discuss the insights on the topic.
The team met with Abdul Qadeer, Partner BDO Ebrahim & Co and his team and also met with business experts in the evening at an event organized by ACCA. The report was developed by EY Pakistan in collaboration with ACCA. Arif Masud Mirza, ACCA Head of Policy for MENASA said that the ACCA has produced the report 'Indirect Taxes - Current Trends across south Asia and the UAE' from years of engaging with stakeholders who have voiced loud concern over the aggressive and ad hoc manner in which Indirect taxes are being implemented and collected we thought we would document the regions current trends to start a dialogue and better understand, appreciate and plan indirect taxes primarily VAT.
He further said that the VAT rates are too high in some countries when we compete with others the taxpayers may be aggrieved by that act; one will also have to look at regional competitiveness of each jurisdiction. It is clear that businesses need professionals with strong ethics to help them with compliance and planning, he commented.
Muhammad Awais, tax partner said that the report discusses the importance of indirect taxes and revenue collection, thresholds, tax rates, zero-rating, exemptions and various other areas of indirect tax administration along with recommendations to improve the practices in Pakistan and the region at large. Speaking on the occasion Chowdhury said that ACCA's global research and insights programme addresses the crucial issues for businesses, economies, society and the profession now and in the future. Accounting for taxation is a major part of the work of any finance function in MENASA countries.
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