Deloitte: Digitizing Tax in the GCC

Deloitte hosted an innovative series of ‘tax lab’ summits across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) for businesses. The purpose of the sessions was to discuss how automation, digital protocols and methodologies would transform tax accounting, reporting and compliance in the region. The specific focus of the labs was on how both the public and private sector could design tax functions for the future.  This included using design principles to structure tax departments and to build and implement technology architecture and embedded solutions.

“The level of tax transformation that we are seeing in the GCC region is unprecedented”, said Jason Riche, Deloitte Middle East Tax Management Consulting (TMC) leader. “The plethora of new taxes entering the region and the speed with which this revolution is happening is causing a tidal wave of C-suite level opportunities and concerns. Tax transformation and tax technology will remain a key issue for the C-suite and boards for the foreseeable future.”

80% of those surveyed stated that their organizations were currently not automated from a tax perspective and 60% said their organizations were reactive and static. By contrast, 85% said they anticipated they would undergo large scale tax technology adaptation in the next 5 years and 90% aspired to have proactive and progressive tax functions in as little as the next 2 years.

“The statistics reported by the Deloitte Middle East tax labs suggest that the GCC region is perhaps the area were we will see the most growth globally in tax technology advancement in the next decade”, said Nauman Ahmed, Middle East Tax Leader.  “The areas that our clients are telling us they are most interested in are tax analytics, Artificial Intelligence and Robotic Process Automation.”

Stay tuned for Deloitte’s second round of tax labs kicking off in the Middle East region in early 2020.