Conference on international VAT requirements in October
Bookings for tax conference gain 'momentum'
New developments in international VAT frameworks will come under the spotlight at an event the Malta Institute of Management is planning for October, MIM president Reuben Buttigieg told The Times Business.
The agenda will include discussions on the latest information to emerge from authorities in Malta and throughout the EU, and new requirements concerning international VAT returns. Mr Buttigieg said it was hoped the event would kickstart a dialogue on simplifying matters for small businesses involved in overseas trade.
Meanwhile, Mr Buttigieg said bookings for the MIM's annual international taxation conference on May 21 have gathered momentum and professionals from Malta, the UK, Luxembourg and Italy have already confirmed their attendance. Now in its third edition, the conference attracts around 150 accountants and lawyers from several countries.
This year, the conference will deal with tax treaty developments. The event is being marketed in Italy and other European countries and through the European Management Association network, of which the MIM currently holds the presidency.
Mr Buttigieg said that the event has been praised for its high profile speakers and presents professionals with a valuable networking opportunity. The first edition took a pure training slant, but by the second, the event had been transformed to provide an insight into developments in international taxation over the previous 12 months.
The conference is also accredited by six and a half hours of core competency taxation as part of the Advanced Diploma in International Taxation. The programme, the first international qualification with a Maltese variant, is a three-module course run by the MIM. According to Mr Buttigieg, it has proven successful despite initial scepticism.
The conference has also spawned its first publication, Robert Attard's Principles of Maltese Tax Law, with a foreword by Philip Baker, now considered an essential textbook and source of reference. Both Dr Attard, director of taxes services at Ernst & Young (Malta), and Prof. Baker of Gray's Inn Tax Chambers and a regular ADIT lecturer, will present papers at the conference.
Mr Buttigieg now aims to launch an annual publication to coincide or follow each conference.
Other speakers at the conference later this month include Nick Goulding, immediate past president of the UK's Chartered Institute of Taxation; and Pasquale Pistone, a professor of tax law at the University of Salerno and the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. While in Malta, Prof. Pistone will launch a Masters programme in International Taxation offered by the University of Salerno which will feature Maltese lecturers, among whom Juanita Brockdorff, associate director of tax services at KPMG. Dr Brockdorff will also address the event.
PricewaterhouseCoopers partner Neville Gatt, Switzerland-based Loyens & Loeff tax lawyer Ramona Piscopo, Christian Ellul of Francis J. Vassallo & Associates, and Allison Christians, assistant professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School, will give presentations on Maltese and international tax issues.
The conference will be held at the Radisson SAS Baypoint Resort, St Julian's. Registration is at 8.30 a.m. Finance Minister Tonio Fenech will give the opening address at 9. Bookings can be made online at www.maltamanagement.com.