2014 Asia Pacific Tax Complexity Survey

How are tax policies affecting your business in Asia Pacific? In this year’s Asia Pacific Tax Complexity Survey Report, over 800 business and tax professionals told us how they feel about the tax regimes in 20 jurisdictions across the Asia Pacific region. This survey serves as a useful benchmark that we hope will help executives make business decisions and enhance tax management practices in Asia Pacific.

The key findings of the survey include:

• Consistency – While tax is a key factor for investors in making investment decisions in Asia Pacific, respondents believe that consistency in tax policy is more important than predictability or complexity. According to 85 percent of respondents, tax policy is a high priority when considering investing in the Asia Pacific region. Therefore, achieving this consistency should be carefully considered.
  
  
• More than 80 percent of respondents believe that India, Mainland China and Indonesia are expected to be the three most complex tax regimes by 2017; Hong Kong and Singapore will be amongst the least complex. Additionally, current global tax policy efforts around tax sharing (i.e. OECD's BEPS project) are likely to cause further complexity, confusion and change within the Asia Pacific region.
  
  
• Respondents are very focused on taxation matters – their effect on the business and the broader communities. Over 50 percent of respondents indicated that their board of directors and C-suite executives are now engaged in taxation matters and a high percentage indicated that they consider reputational risk when considering tax matters.
  
  
• The growth in the Asia Pacific economies has placed an unprecedented challenge on tax bureaus and their ability to keep up with relevant legislation and trained tax inspectors. Tax inspector training and increased speed and resolution of tax audits should be a priority for governing bodies.

Download the full version to find out more.