MasterCard has announced a partnership with solutions provider VAT IT in offering the first cloud-based VAT tax recovery service in Asia Pacific.
Traditionally, the VAT recovery process for businesses is highly administrative and bureaucratic, resulting in financial losses from unclaimed foreign VAT.
In the roll out of the new service, MasterCard hopes to provide companies with solutions to recover VAT efficiently.
VAT IT's VAT Cloud™ will enable businesses to see significant cost savings by using an automated, efficient and technology-based service that enable seamless integration with issuing bank data to allow analysis and recovery of VAT embedded in credit card data.
The new VAT Cloud™ system automatically connects an issuing bank’s corporate MasterCard credit card data directly to the tax office, while simultaneously identifying potential VAT reclaims through transaction data. It is then consolidated and packaged into the respective compliant VAT reclaim formats and sent directly to the relevant tax office.
The VAT claims are then transferred back to the business’ bank accounts and the entire process is traceable from data collection to the payment of the VAT claim. VAT IT only charges a fee for successful VAT claims, with the fee being calculated as a percentage of the claim. MasterCard won’t charge for unsuccessful claims. “For any business today, foreign transactions, employee travel expenses and their accompanying foreign tax create a significant cost burden to businesses. Whether you’re a start -up, a small medium enterprise, or a large corporate organization, timely and efficient VAT recovery can help save your business considerable time and money,” said Philip Glickman, head of commercial products and solutions, Asia-Pacific.
Beginning January 2016, businesses all across the Asia Pacific region will be able to register for the service either through their issuing bank, MasterCard or VAT IT directly. They will be able to use VAT Cloud™ system to process any of their VAT claims in a total of 24 countries.
