Introduction

Welcome to the 2018 edition of the Indirect Tax Leaders guide from the International Tax Review. This is the seventh annual publication of the list of the world's leading indirect tax practitioners and marks a significant step in its evolution. Beginning this year, we are looking to grow the guide in both scope and scale. It will cover more jurisdictions, reach out to more individuals and recognise more practitioners than ever before – from rising stars just making a name for themselves to market leaders with decades of experience behind them.

This year alone we reached out to more than 2,500 leading tax professionals from around the globe to gather their feedback about their markets and the individuals that stand out in them. The Indirect Tax Leaders guide now includes the names of more than 800 experts from jurisdictions in every corner of the world; more than ever before.

These individuals are nominated by their peers and recommended as trusted advisers. We ask professionals to name the people they would refer their clients to in the event of a conflict, or recommend as a local representative in another jurisdiction. And all those named in the guide have received a minimum number of recommendations from different practitioners. The resulting list is therefore a collection of indirect tax leaders recognised – by the leading names in their own and international markets – as those who perform strongest in their field. Market leaders chosen by market leaders.

As part of our plans to grow and develop the guide we will also be introducing new online profiles for those included this year. These will offer practitioners a chance to showcase their work to clients, offer more information about their skills and experience and display feedback given to our research team by clients from a broad range of industries.

Our aim always is to progress the guide, reach out to more practitioners, receive feedback from more clients and provide coverage of more leaders from every market. We would like to thank those who took the time to provide feedback to help us put this guide together this year and would encourage everyone to do so in the future to ensure we are providing the broadest, most accurate assessment of the leaders in indirect tax that we can.

Jonathan Moore,

Editor,

World Tax and World TP