MANAMA: Approximately 200 key members from the business community in the Kingdom of Bahrain attended an exclusive seminar organized by KPMG in Bahrain for VAT registered and to-be registered businesses to discuss tax compliance and reporting obligations. This in preparation for the first VAT return cycle coming up in April this year. VAT has now been live in the Kingdom of Bahrain for nearly three months and by latest 30 April 2019, VAT registered businesses will be required to submit their first VAT return to the National Bureau for Revenue (NBR).
Philippe Norré, Partner and Head of Taxes and Corporate Services at KPMG in Bahrain was the keynote speaker and shared insights from his long experience in rolling out and leading KPMG’s Global Indirect Tax Compliance approach. He explained and discussed the detailed requirements outlined by the Bahraini VAT legislative framework. “Not only are VAT registered businesses required to submit correctly completed VAT returns and do by deadline together with any payment due, but the compliance and reporting obligations for VAT do require keeping a set of quality documents to support the numbers reported and allowing for an end-to-end reconciliation including with the General Ledger (purchase orders, contracts, invoices, import and export documentation, debt and credit notes and others). As further official guidance notes are issued by NBR a proper knowledge management process is required to keep fully abreast of all developments around VAT in Bahrain,” he said.
During the discussions, KPMG in Bahrain’s Tax team also addressed the many issues raised by the attendees. Inaccurate record-keeping remains one of the main challenges for businesses in Bahrain as part of being on the lower steps of the VAT maturity curve. VAT has the spin-off effect that many types of business activities and arrangements now must be documented differently and not all businesses have already systems that are now set up to record and administer VAT in compliance with the Law and Regulations. Relying heavily on manual work can lead errors and exposures to penalties and interest so achieving a healthy degree of automation for tax compliance is a strategy business must adopt as best practice.
In the seminar, KPMG in Bahrain’s compliance methodology and technology were presented. It features a tailored tool that facilitates the process of data transformation and review, VAT return preparation, management reporting and seamless interaction between KPMG and clients prior to submission. An insight was given into the further investments KPMG is making to roll out an end-to-end compliance and analytics flagship tool, to be used and deployed within KPMG and/or on premise with clients.