Abhishek Shah, of Caterpillar, will be the first chairman of a new sub-committee on indirect tax, which the Asia chapter of Tax Executives Institute (TEI) has decided to set up. The EMEA chapter of the organisation, a global association of in-house tax professionals, already has a similar committee for the EU VAT system.
"The decision to set-up an indirect tax focused committee comes at the right time with the growing importance of Indirect taxes in the Asia region due to the changing tax landscape with Malaysia introducing GST last year, China completing its B2V [Business Tax to VAT] conversion soon and India deciding to adopt a unified GST," said Shah, who is the VAT/GST lead for the Asia Pacific region for Caterpillar.
Shah says his and the sub-committee's tasks will be to generate awareness among industry peers of the importance of indirect tax on their business; make representations to tax administrations about industry-specific issues; create training sessions with the help of consulting and law firms and provide members with professional networking opportunities.
