1. What is the most significant change to your region/jurisdiction’s tax legislation or regulations in the past 12 months?
From a Nordic perspective, we have seen a rewritten Value Added Tax Act in Sweden and new bookkeeping legislation in Denmark, both of which have required local attention. That said, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and various e-invoicing mandates across EMEA are top of mind when it comes to significant legislative changes.
2. What has been the most significant impact of that change?
Looking at CBAM, for example, we continue to experience additional reporting measures that not only require legal analysis but also significant investments in compliance processes and technology.
3. How do you anticipate that change impacting your work and the market moving forwards?
Tax practitioners are generally used to change. As such, both we and the market are pretty used to being in this situation. However, the scale and speed of what we are seeing is likely unprecedented and certainly will require continued focus and investments.
4. How has this changed the way you offer tax advice?
We are scaling up and increasing the speed in how we cooperate both cross-border and across functions to continue to be able to serve our clients as efficiently as possible.
5. What potential other legislative/regulatory changes are on the horizon that you think will have a big impact on your region/jurisdiction?
The continued saga of VAT in the Digital Age would be the obvious answer given its expected impact. Adding to that, it would not be surprising to see additional developments on environmental taxes given the wider sustainability agenda that continues to be a talking point.
6. What are the potential outcomes that might occur if those changes are implemented?
Those changes will reinforce the compliance and data management focus we already see today.
7. Do you think that change will have a positive effect on both your practice and the wider regional/jurisdictional market?
Optimistically, the efforts needed to implement fundamental changes to legislation should not be underestimated and we, of course, hope to play a major role there. In a digitalised, fast-moving reporting environment, access to advisory and controversy capabilities will likely continue to be critical for most organisations. This will certainly be even more true if efforts to harmonise the rules and implementation measures across borders fail.
8. Are there any regulatory/legislative changes you believe should be implemented in your region/jurisdiction?
From a local market perspective, it would make sense that any centrally decided rules in the EU on e-invoicing apply equally also for pure domestic transactions to avoid parallel systems and emphasise the digitalisation shift. Being even more local, but perhaps not that specific, there are still pockets where we must continue the efforts to align local legislation and the interpretation thereof to reflect the EU VAT Directive.
9. How do you believe those changes would help improve the tax landscape in your market?
First, this is a matter of securing the function of the inner market and avoiding distortion of competition. Second, it is a matter of compliance and trust in the system for all those groups operating globally to be able to avoid unnecessary local adjustments and adaptations.
10. How are issues surrounding the taxation of the digital economy affecting your work?
Naturally, this is very much at the core of our daily conversations and future ambitions. That goes both to the reporting aspects of handling massive amounts of data as well as the challenges of interpreting and understanding how the fast-paced digital economy can be translated into existing taxation rules.
11. How would you describe the tax authorities’ approach in your region/jurisdiction?
From a Nordic perspective, the authorities are not overly formalistic, and we have professional working relationships with them. Of course, we may have different views from time to time, but, overall, we are fairly aligned on systematic challenges and the need for additional moves towards a simpler and more digitalised way of working.
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