VALUE Added Tax (VAT) will be incrementally deployed across Gulf countries in the short future. Oracle can help companies in the GCC become VAT compliant and the roadshow organized in Riyadh with Deloitte is focused on sharing insights on what companies need to do to be VAT compliant. Thamer Al Harbi, Country MD, Saudi Arabia – Oracle; Aarti Mohan, ERP and EPM Leader – Oracle and Si-Mohamed Said. Head of Marketing, ECEMEA – Oracle led the roadshow in Riyadh that was attended by several Oracle customers and partners. Introduction of VAT is new to Saudi Arabia and the GCC states. It is important for companies to make preparations in terms of gearing up the accounting systems to integrate VAT. With just about 9 months to go for actual implementation, it is imperative for companies to address the VAT related concerns, Besides highlighting the key aspects of VAT implementation, Oracle experts also discussed how Oracle can help companies in Saudi Arabia become compliant with the introduction of value-added tax Value-added tax (or VAT) is an indirect tax added to a product's sales price. It represents a tax on the value added to goods or services throughout their production process. VAT has been a standard source of revenue for governments around the world, in European countries like England, France, and Germany, as well as in Canada, Australia, and many others. Now, for the first time, companies in the GCC will have to collect VAT. VAT is levied at nearly every stage of the supply chain, from raw materials to the final product sold in stores. Ultimately, consumers end up paying the tax—but businesses are still responsible for collecting it, submitting it to the government, and reporting on how much they collected; along with how much they deducted for their own costs. With that in mind, it's important to make provision and plan ahead to efficiently integrate this change into your organization's processes and culture. The vast majority of GCC companies will need to ensure they efficiently and accurately determine and report on VAT requirements by automating these new processes. Businesses that meet a minimum annual turnover will have to register for VAT. But small organizations that turn over less than the minimum requirement won't need to register. Businesses that distribute goods and services in certain industries, such as healthcare and education, will not need to comply with VAT regulations. For decades, Oracle's solutions and experts have helped thousands of companies worldwide to comply with local VAT requirements. New approaches include connecting VAT cloud services to on-premises enterprise resource planning (ERP)—such as Oracle E-Business Suite—or simply taking the opportunity to completely digitize and modernize businesses by deploying enterprise resource planning (ERP) in the cloud using software as a service, or (SaaS). In either case, there is a benefit to placing tax functionality in the cloud—namely, you always have access to the latest version of software—rather than using on-premises systems, which require lengthy upgrades. Oracle updates its cloud applications on a regular basis to ensure you always have the most recent solution to comply with new VAT rates or tax regulations. And with the VAT deadline less than a year away, the cloud can complete either of these approaches in a much shorter time frame than traditional on premises implementations—typically taking weeks rather than years.
