Hybrid Work Raises Your Tax Risk and Complexity

Your employees are still getting the job done, but where they work has shifted, often to home. They’ve bought desks, computer monitors, internet service, and more – legitimate business expenses but also potentially taxable employee benefits. It’s just one of many issues of a changing workplace: 30% of business leaders told IDC that managing hybrid work is an organisational challenge. 

And if your company has overseas operations or travels abroad, it likely pays value-added tax (VAT) and other taxes on goods and services – in varying amounts and multiple locations. The purchases are for business purposes, so you’re eligible to reclaim some of the payments and return that money to the bottom line. Your company isn’t alone in the hunt for answers, as 61% of business and IT decision-makers think VA will significantly affect their tax management within two years.

VAT and employee taxable benefits are situations full of complexity because the expenses mix personal and business uses, like mobile phones, for example. Determining how much of each expense benefits the employee and the company is no simple challenge.  

Both are areas where companies sometimes lack the expertise to track eligible expenses, because they rely on manual processes or are unable to pluck relevant information from the data they have. Remote and hybrid work, as well as VAT, occurs in numerous locations, bringing many tax authorities and structures into play. And the rules change with regularity. All are factors that result in regulatory risk and lost opportunities and pounds. 

A Finance Leader's Guide to Tax Compliance 

Get the guide to learn how your company can handle VAT, taxable benefits, and compliance with greater efficiency and certainty.

Download Here

With the intelligent technology, SAP® Concur® solutions like Concur Tax Assurance service by Blue dot and Concur Benefits Assurance service by Blue dot can do the work for you, helping you sort through the challenges and minimising uncertainty.  

Concur Tax Assurance by Blue dot 

Concur Tax Assurance automatically identifies eligible employee transactions and enriches the data with additional information that authorities require for tax recovery. Data from multiple expenses is aggregated and then checked to ensure it satisfies recovery rules, while applying country-specific rules so that you don’t have to. All the information is available on a dashboard, which allows you to drill down by date and business unit. You can see what’s eligible and what’s not, allowing you to drive business traveller behaviour and raise recovery in the future. Each month, you receive a file that allows you to reconcile charges, submit to multiple authorities, and get back money the business is owed. 

Concur Benefits Assurance by Blue dot 

Is that mobile phone a perk or a legitimate expense – or both? Concur Benefits Assurance is a digital, end-to-end service that flags expenses that could be taxable employee benefits. Using intelligent technology, it digs through and interpret expense reports to categorise spending and spot possible taxable benefits. It applies continuously updated rates from multiple locations, informed by global regulatory requirements and your company’s own rules or prebuilt ones it selects. The service provides a dashboard where you can see flagged expenses by country, date, type of rules, and other factors. You see what’s taxable, what’s not, and what’s a problem needing review. Monthly reports allow you to reconcile benefits with payroll and stay in compliance. 

Learn more and comply 

• Read “A Finance Leader’s Guide to Tax Compliance” to discover more about identifying expenses that are taxable benefits, reclaiming VAT and other taxes, and ensuring compliance with the help of intelligent solutions.  

• Learn more about the Concur Tax Assurance and Concur Benefits Assurance and how they can help make each spending decision a moment of confidence instead of confusion. 

IDC Info Snapshot sponsored by SAP Concur, Meeting the Challenge of Expense Management in a Hybrid Work Environment, Doc #US49971522,  March 2023