Interview with Marjolijn van der Wal, Partner, Indirect Tax, Deloitte Netherlands
1. What is the most significant change to your region/jurisdiction’s tax legislation or regulations in the past 12 months?
In the entire NSE and Middle East region, new or changed e-invoicing and e-reporting requirements have been introduced.
The most material, region wide development was the rapid roll out of mandatory e invoicing and continuous transaction reporting (CTR) regimes across many EMEA jurisdictions. That trend is the most likely candidate for “most significant” change, continuing into the following year.
2. What has been the most significant impact of that change?
The rapid roll out of mandatory e-invoicing and near real-time reporting across multiple countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa has significant implications. It fundamentally changes how VAT data is generated, transmitted, and reconciled, shifting compliance from periodic returns to continuous or near real-time data flows.
Operationally, companies must implement system changes (ERP/e-invoicing, integrations, and archiving), redesign processes, and enhance IT and audit capabilities. At the same time, the increased availability of richer data enables tax authorities to target under-reported VAT more effectively and to enhance automated compliance checks, thereby raising the need for stronger controls and more proactive risk management.
3. How do you anticipate that change impacting your work and the market moving forwards?
Mandatory e-invoicing and CTR will reframe VAT compliance from a periodic, retrospective exercise into continuous, data-driven processes. For practitioners, this means more work upstream on systems, controls, and data quality, a shift in advisory services toward technology and process transformation, and new market opportunities for integrated compliance, analytics, and managed services.
4. How has this changed the way you offer tax advice?
This has changed how we view our advisory business. Alongside our traditional advisory services, we must adopt a more continuous and operational approach. Advice will no longer be limited to legal interpretation or tax-only offerings; engagements will routinely be multidisciplinary, involving IT, security, procurement, operations, and change management.
5. What potential other legislative/regulatory changes are on the horizon that you think will have a big impact on your region/jurisdiction?
Changes in indirect taxation to protect local markets (e.g., tariffs, handling fees) and further expansion of platform liability rules and (third-party) reporting obligations.
6. What are the potential outcomes that might occur if those changes are implemented?
The compliance burden of clients increases, and a small number of taxpayers become responsible for the compliance of many taxpayers. Tax changes can have a big impact on business models, and compliance burden could lead to smaller businesses being pushed out of a market.
7. Do you think that change will have a positive effect on both your practice and the wider regional/jurisdictional market?
Changes generally mean more advisory work. Ultimately, all businesses benefit from clear and neutral tax rules that infringe the “real world” as little as possible.
8. Are there any regulatory/legislative changes you believe should be implemented in your region/jurisdiction?
Where possible, harmonization and standardization should be enforced when implementing e-invoicing and e-reporting obligations. This also applies to domestic implementations. Currently, the scattered landscape limits international trade.
9. How do you believe those changes would help improve the tax landscape in your market?
These changes will safeguard an efficient economy from being hindered by complex tax obligations, while still enabling tax authorities to check taxpayer compliance with these obligations efficiently. The implementations themselves result in less focus on VAT returns, shifting instead toward more automated analysis by the authorities and tailored audits/questions.
10. What sort of issues surrounding the implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) have you seen, and how will AI implementation likely affect your work?
Data security and the ability to work efficiently with and verify the outcomes of AI-generated responses are key concerns. AI will significantly reduce the time spent on data processing and will make questions from our clients more strategic and interpretative in nature.
11. How would you describe the tax authorities’ approach in your region/jurisdiction?
There is no one-size-fits-all approach. The broader trend is toward “showing” rather than “telling” (using the amount of data available).
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