One of the trickiest of all issues for tax management is compliance with multiple tax laws across borders, domestic and international. This sometimes rather thankless, gruelling task can cause significant cost and quite difficult issues for businesses and individuals. The need for efficiency and effective administration can become a true minefield of legal technicalities.
The fundamental issues of compliance with tax laws across borders define the problems:
- Tax laws
- Administration
- Documentation
- Operational practices for compliance
- Variations in practices and payments regarding the above
Less obvious is a simple but dangerous fact- The quality of advice and information provided by external authorities can vary from excellent to absolutely appalling and seriously misleading. The result of getting low quality tax information can be a quite unnecessary chaotic mess, to put it mildly. Costs, time, resources and patience can be put under severe strain.
A single misinterpretation of inadequate information regarding compliance requirements can cause a lot of expensive work. Having to “rectify” tax practices, payments and administration, particularly after conscientiously trying to comply with tax laws, can be a particularly unproductive horror story.
BEST PRACTICE FOR CROSS-BORDER TAX COMPLIANCE
There’s an easy way to manage cross-border tax compliance- Make sure you have expert advice from tax lawyers available.
Tax lawyers can:
- Conduct a thorough review of existing tax compliance practices
- Research tax compliance issues very efficiently
- Systematically access relevant legal and statutory references
- Cross check tax practices and compliance requirements
- Provide expert advice and guidance regarding new compliance requirements as they arise
- Provide an instant knowledge base for new business initiatives which relate to compliance issues
The huge advantage to management in engaging expert tax lawyers is that the legal oversight of compliance acts as both a valuable source of reliable information and a cost-efficient way of managing the issues. This is also extremely valuable as an independent cross-check of quality of performance in terms of compliance practices. The risk of expensive compliance mistakes is avoided, and the management process greatly streamlined to ensure appropriate, well-informed responses to issues for senior management.
The message is clear- Never take risks with cross border tax compliance requirements. Make sure you’ve got your facts straight and reliable legal support, and you’ll never have any problems.
