Keeping pace with real-time reporting

For a long time multinational companies could consider indirect taxes such as VAT to be the responsibility of their local subsidiaries. As tax administrations are embarking on aggressive digital transformations this approach is not just unsustainable – it is a threat to companies’ own digital transformations.

Governments across the globe are embracing the sweeping trend of implementing continuous transaction controls (CTCs) in an effort to tighten their VAT returns process and to increase economic transparency. Looking to reduce instances of fraud manipulation and errors that can be hidden in summary VAT returns tax administrations are increasingly introducing portal and programming interfaces to harvest sales and purchase information much closer to the actual commercial transactions inching ever closer to the raw data from which they can judge and measure business-to-business supply chains and consumer transactions in great detail and in real time.

It is...