Deloitte during its sixth Middle East Tax seminar shared local and regional tax updates, developments and implementation strategies. In addition, Deloitte launched its latest Annual Middle East Tax Handbook, highlighting the most current tax rules and regulations impacting the region.
The sixth Middle East Tax Seminar by Deloitte shed light on tax issues impacting the region, both for overseas investors and for local businesses. Senior professionals with tax responsibilities within their respective organizations came together, where Deloitte’s leading tax partners presented key issues and pragmatic solutions for each. Deloitte is a Tier 1 Tax advisor in the GCC region (International Tax Review World Tax 2010, 2011 and 2012 Rankings).
“Many anticipate 2012 and 2013 to be a significant period of change for tax regimes in the Middle East, with ongoing changing regulations. This seminar highlights the latest occurrences and reveals the implications of major tax developments that have been recently announced,” Nauman Ahmed, tax partner at Deloitte in the Middle East, said.
In addition to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar were areas of focus of the seminar. Deloitte experts also discussed taxation of the neutral zone between KSA and Kuwait, residency rules and definition of taxable income, and presented a roundup of the tax landscape in the other Middle East countries especially Kuwait, Oman, Iraq and Libya.
“Deloitte’s series of tax seminars provide valuable forums designed for regional leaders and for businesses to understand and address the increasingly complex tax environment in the region,” commented Ahmed. “Deloitte’s in-depth knowledge of laws and practices, and deep understanding of the prevalent environment and tax developments enable us to critically analyze scenarios and provide pragmatic solutions to complex business issues to leaders in the region.”
Tax developments impacting Egypt and the Levant region were also assessed, including how Egypt’s transfer pricing rules are being applied, and what this means for the future of transfer pricing in the region. Whilst transfer pricing regulations have not been issued in the region to date, except in Egypt, Deloitte Middle East’s transfer pricing advisors say that tax authorities in several GCC countries have started to be receptive to taxpayers, providing transfer pricing documentation to support the arm’s length nature of related party transactions.
“Emerging Markets tax issues are a key area of focus for our clients and us. Deloitte has been committed to providing tax services in countries such as Iraq, Libya, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen,” Ali Kazimi, Head of International Tax Services at Deloitte Middle East, said.
The Deloitte seminar also addressed trends in indirect taxation, such as customs duties, VAT/GST, and sales taxes, within the region were addressed. A key development discussed is the trend toward reduction of customs duties, and what this means for government revenues in the region, whilst some of the emerging countries are bucking the trend by planning increases.
Following a run-down of expert views, the seminar moved to break-out sessions focusing on deep discussions in topical issues, followed by a client panel session hosting leaders from a variety of business sectors who discussed their views and industry expertise.