Deloitte, a professional services firm, has launched a special proprietary technology to assist Middle East businesses to recover tax (value added tax) paid in the European Union countries.

The “RevaticSmart” technology allows Deloitte to efficiently and cost effectively identify, process, and substantiate VAT refund claims and facilitates the entire VAT recovery lifecycle, including eligibility analysis, invoice retrieval, refund processing improvement and dispute resolution.

“This technology acquisition, combined with Deloitte’s local indirect tax expertise, presents a unique opportunity for our clients in the Middle East to reduce hidden VAT costs”, said Nauman Ahmed, Deloitte Middle East tax practice leader.

“Deloitte is pleased to make this investment in response to our clients’ wish to create material savings using government sponsored tax refund schemes,” said Justin Whitehouse, the Deloitte Middle East Indirect Tax Leader.

“We can now offer our clients a variety of technology-driven solutions that will help our clients drive tax efficiency or enable better tax risk management. Our investment in RevaticSmart increases the breadth and depth of Deloitte’s services to our Middle East clients”, said Whitehouse.

It is widely estimated that every year businesses incur $1.8 billion of EU VAT which they should be entitled to recover.  As this VAT is incurred in staff expenses, identifying and processing the claims is not cost efficient.

The acquisition of the “RevaticSmart” technology, with is optical character recognition software, enables Deloitte to compile information on thousands of invoices in a fraction of the time it would have taken in the past.

This means that Deloitte can offer its clients the ability to recover this VAT on a cost effective basis - previously such work has been undertaken in a highly manual fashion.

Concurrently, the International Tax Review Indirect Tax Leaders guide has recognised 94 Deloitte member firm professionals as leading indirect tax advisers, more than any other organization in the world. The list includes Justin Whitehouse.

"I am delighted to have been named on the recognized Indirect Tax leaders list as it is personally pleasing. However, it is a testament not just to me, but the Indirect Tax team in the Middle East, which is the largest specialized team of its type in the region helping clients across all indirect tax issues", said Whitehouse.

The tax professionals featured in the guide are identified by researchers who conduct in-depth evaluations of indirect tax practitioners worldwide. Leaders are chosen based on a nomination process as well as consultation with eminent industry professionals who express their views on the credibility of nominees. – TradeArabia News Service