VAT audit: not a luxury but a real necessity

An additional VAT assessment of the tax authorities can determine whether the company has a future or not. Unfortunately, many companies realize thistoo late, namely once they have been confronted with additional tax claims that are brought forward by the tax authorities. VAT can be full of surprises, which are, however, mostly unpleasant of nature.

What about your administrative organisation?

Experiences show that companies that are not able to present immediately and at any time a written description of the way business processes that are relevant for purposes of VAT are handled within the company, are predestined for failure.

VAT is all about planning, organisation of people and processes, verifying, controlling and looking ahead. Nature and impact of VAT are often underestimated. It takes much more than a few instructions to ensure that a company fully complies with domestic and -for companies involved in cross-border transactions- foreign VAT. Involved are the whole range from presale activities (drafting of contracts or sales conditions, planning of sales structures) to actual sales activities (e.g. invoicing, logistics) and back-office activities (the handling of VAT in the bookkeeping and the VAT returns, adjustment of invoices (e.g. credit-notes or returning goods), the internal controlling system, the recording of documents).

Everything under control?

Practice shows that many companies assume that the services of their regular accountant also cover the review of the VAT handling of the company. Under normal engagement conditions this will not be the case. Consequently, a company should be aware about the character and scope of the audits performed by their regular accountant and initiate complementary reviews. Moreover, it remains solely the responsibility of the company to ensure that the appropriate measurements for compliance with domestic and foreign VAT regulations are put and kept in place, respectively are actually applied.

Save now = pay later substantially more

The common policy of many companies to refrain from VAT consultancy in an early stage has proven to be very expensive. The costs of looking for solutions afterwards exceed the costs of preventive reviews. It should be reminded that in a lot of cases in which VAT problems could have been prevented by consulting VAT specialists more earlier, VAT actually becomes a burden for the taxable person. The character of VAT implies that tax authorities collect additional tax assessments regardless the circumstances that gave rise to them. Pity is not part of the VAT vocubulary.....

Our VAT audit services

The VAT audit services we offer build on a concept in which the various business processes that are relevant for purposes of VAT are approached in an integrated manner. Even when a VAT review is limited to one business process or aspect the other relevant processes or elements are kept in mind and taken into account. Our audit consultancy services encompass amongst other:

- administrative organisation: