With tax departments across the world responding to these challenges in a number of ways, KPMG International’s latest study goes on to provide insight into current and future trends and signals a timely reminder to those parts of the world as yet unaffected by the changes that increased regulation and stakeholder pressure is coming their way.

The report, entitled The Rising Tide: regulation and stakeholder pressure on tax departments worldwide is the combination of two surveys: one by the U.S. firm, the other by KPMG International’s Global Tax Outsourcing (GTO) team. Together, they represent the combined views of 753 tax professionals in major corporates and multi-nationals in 19 countries worldwide.

Key highlights include:

Why tax departments, without reducing the importance of training and recruitment, are increasingly turning to better process and technology to address the competing demands of increased documentation and greater accuracy.

Why tax departments which lead the field are viewing the recent emergence of tax risk management on the boardroom agenda as a source of value and competitive advantage.

Why outsourcing remains the approach of choice for compliance and expatriate work, but further expansion is being hindered by perceived cost and difficulties in educating a third party provider.

The study concludes that companies may gain competitive advantage if they can reduce time spent on labor-intensive, routine compliance tasks and free up their tax professionals to add value on business support and tax planning.

To download and read the study in full, click on the link below.