Tax-Aligned
The year 2017 has proven to be a milestone for all things digital. The Digital Global Overview reports that in 2017 a momentous milestone was reached, as more than half of the world’s population now uses the internet. The digitalization and the use of internet have transformed the way we used to conduct business.
In the Tax Assurance field the use of internet and a well-designed, well-implemented and well-functioning IT-infrastructure is key to enterprises. It helps them to become aware of their performance and it enables them to make decisions based on the information available. Furthermore, the digitalization has changed the business environment and it is still evolving as the digital connectivity increases. As a result organizations are experiencing an increased acceleration in innovations and digital transformations. Business models are evolving even more rapidly and so are corporate governance laws and tax regulations due to exponential technological developments. Because the business tax environment is more depended on data and technology, tax transparency is becoming a hot item. In response enterprises and governments have to develop digital environments to accommodate tax data exchange.
The digitalization increases the importance of data and automated controls, especially the security of data and IT. Enterprises and governments are confronted with discussions and decision-making concerning IT-competences and data science. The pressure to provide stakeholders with timely and accurate information is growing. Management teams are becoming aware that stakeholders nowadays feel the need for non-financial information about tax reporting, supervisory frameworks, tax governance, tax compliance and tax sustainability. Since Tax Assurance concerns everything related to the process of taxes in a company, this field has claimed a prominent role in the boardroom. It includes how taxes end up in the financial statements (Tax Accounting), Tax Risk Management, internal control, corporate governance, tax policy, the relation with tax authorities and the ethical sides of taxation. Enterprises are experiencing an expanding demand for data analytics and non-financial reporting, therefore tools for real-time collaboration, workflow automation, document management and automated internal controls are being considered and implemented.
Enterprises are seeking IT-systems that enable real time data-analysis and detailed transaction data, and are aligned with tax requirements. Technological developments allow enterprises to rapidly and easily identify and correct data entry problems such as correctly calculated tax on invoices or at point of sale. It should also be mentioned that well-implemented IT-systems enable tax data analytics and improve tax compliance, tax controversy resolution, Tax Accounting and overall Tax Assurance. Furthermore, to support the tax compliance as well as tax planning and tax performance responsibilities, the company’s management should have effective communication, information-sharing and measurement processes across all functional areas. Both, information-sharing and communication, are becoming more important. Therefore enterprises should have an IT-infrastructure that allow relevant team members timely access to the data and information. So they can do their job and make well-considered decisions. Through tax data analytics a well-implemented and an effective, efficient and transparent functioning IT-infrastructure can add value to the entire enterprise.
“In our in ever-evolving digital world a well-implemented
and well-functioning IT-infrastructure is essential”
IT-infrastructure
In our in ever-evolving digital world a well-implemented and well-functioning IT-infrastructure is essential, because it provides for an effective data management and data analytics. It offers the management transparency regarding the enterprise’s business-planning data and a rapid collection of source data for tax accounting and tax reporting purposes. Furthermore, the right IT-infrastructure allows effective and efficient analyses and high level reviews of the data collected.
The impact of record storage requirements of the tax authorities should not be underestimated, since these create a set of risks for the enterprise’s management, for example, a notice of inadequate recording and lack of evidence to support tax filing. These risks increase when enterprises have implemented an ERP-system that doesn’t provide automatic extraction of data in a format consistent with local tax record requirements. Management teams should seek and implement a well-structured, centralized tax data management which allows the use of common data residing in a central repository or user interface. The implemented IT-infrastructure should also allow the aggregation of information from different sources into a meaningful management report on dashboards. While doing so, the data used for taxation purposes can be continuously monitored and managed. This will provide the necessary stability and reduce the risks that are often associated with interconnected spreadsheets.
Due to the digitalization tax authorities are increasingly using data analytics for tax enforcement and therefore enterprises that lack their own tax data analytics are at a significant disadvantage. Besides compliance, tax data analytics can be used to gain valuable insights into the overall tax performance and the overall performance of other tax-related activities of the enterprise. Well-functioning IT-systems allow for thorough tax analytics such as the identification of patterns, the uncovering of abnormalities and the creation of value. Moreover the IT-systems provide for tax benchmarking and trend analysis. This enables the management to gain deeper insights into tax processes and profiles, using data tools to access and analyze numerous types of tax data. It makes the management of the master tax data and automation of the manual integration between systems easier. The relevance of technology as the foundation for finance and tax decisions is inevitable since it is required to capture, store and maintain the integrity of the available data. Yet another reason to obtain a solid working and well-implemented IT-infrastructure that supports stable processes and policies, thereby allowing consistent, efficient and effective use of the available data, including tax data.
Tax-alignment of the IT-infrastructure
To tax-align source data from the ERP systems and other business software these systems must be configured. The source data can be tax-sensitized while managing the master tax data and automating manual integration between the systems. In order to assemble effective tax data enterprises should develop and implement tools for the timely collection, consolidation and validation of tax data in an automated and controlled fashion. Tax data analytics provide enterprises with the ability to make well-informed decisions which are based on reliable data. Data, which in its turn provide accurate insight. The days that managements based their decisions on incomplete information, using financial and tax perception and experience to fill in the gaps are over. Tax data analytics through tax-alignment of the IT-infrastructure is a key component in achieving good tax governance and the realization of the overall strategy of enterprises. It enables effective and efficient management of taxes throughout all of the processes within the company. A well tax-aligned IT-infrastructure provides for exceptional tax data analytics and therefore for limit the risks of non-compliance and lack
of transparency for stakeholders. Furthermore, tax data analytics which are to be implemented within the monitoring and testing processes will result in real-time confidence in the state of affairs of the company, the compliance status and the quality and assurance of the available data. A tax-aligned IT-infrastructure provide managements with the ability for proactive strategic decision-making.
Enabling processes by including efficiency through technology management teams are able to address emerging tax requirements and add strategic value to the business. To achieve the full strategic value tax-aligned IT-infrastructure and tax data analytics should be designed to be embedded into an IT-system which caters to every tax data requirement. IT-infrastructures should therefore involve reporting, data extraction requirements, a detailed analysis, and a clear definition of business tax requirements. It should also include a tax record retention to make sure that the enterprise has reconciled all transactional data. This data has to be readily available to support audits, since the management should not spent a lot of time searching for and reconciling tax data in case this data is requested by tax authorities or other stakeholders.
The implemented IT-system should enable management teams to monitor all tax-relevant amendments to the ERP-system, because these changes could have an impact on the tax, the tax data and thus the tax data analytics outcome as well.
Conclusion
Since a well-implemented tax-aligned IT-infrastructure provides effective, efficient and transparent strategic decision-making, it adds value to
the enterprise. Tax-aligned IT-systems enable managements to focus the available resources on the critical and relevant tasks, while the proper tax documentation is managed efficiently and effectively to support easy access and analysis. Furthermore, it provide for tax processes to be documented with appropriate controls. And last but not least by doing so enterprises will be able to communicate about and implement tax risk management that is based
on accurate tax data.