The Forum is organised by the island’s only VAT-dedicated indirect tax consulting firm, Chelco VAT Ltd, to celebrate the official launching of its operations and will be held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Limassol on the morning of Friday, June 9, 2017.
The Forum will be an invitation-only event, capped at 150 participants, and will be opened by Minister of Finance, Harris Georgiades.
The first of the three panels will be chaired by well-known lawyer, Kyriacos Scordis, Managing Partner of Scordis, Papapetrou and Co LLC and will look at how the European Court of Justice (CJEU) works and how the Cyprus courts can benefit from referring VAT questions to it.
The keynote speech will be delivered by Dr. Stefan Maunz, Partner with Küffner Maunz Langer Zugmaier in Germany. A lawyer and a certified tax consultant with many years of experience in VAT, Dr. Maunz has extensive experience working for international law firms in both Germany and the USA and regularly lectures at the University of Munich.
The second panel will be chaired by Cyprus Tax Commissioner, Yiannis Tsangaris, and will deal with current problems with the supply of goods within the EU and the proposed solutions through the new VAT Action Plan.
The session’s keynote speeches will be delivered by two of Europe’s most prominent experts in international VAT, Founder and Director of ALLVAT Representative BV in The Netherlands, Raymond Feen, and Founder and President of the international partnership of indirect tax professionals, VAT Forum CV, Prof. Patrick Wille.
Feen, a graduate of the University of Leiden with a concentration in indirect taxes, specialises in international VAT. With many years of experience in a Big Four firm and a number of multinationals, he focuses on the international supply chain and trade by companies in the European region and the GCC area.
Prof. Wille is the founder of The VAT House NV, the VAT Forum CV and VAT Applications NV. He is a professor at the University of Brussels, a frequent speaker at Belgian and European VAT seminars and the author of various books and articles on VAT. He is also the Chief VAT Officer at Avalara, one of the world’s best-known tax solutions companies.
The final session will be chaired by the Forum organiser’s Managing Director, Alexis Tsielepis, and will focus on the VAT problems surrounding the most important business product Cyprus has to offer, the holding company.
The keynote speech will be delivered by arguably Europe’s top authority on VAT, Dr. Ben J. M. Terra from The Netherlands.
Dr. Terra studied international law at the University of Amsterdam and indirect taxation at the University of Leiden. He served as Head of Post-Graduate Training in VAT at Customs and Excises at the Ministry of Finance in The Hague, Professor of Law at the University of Leiden and Head of the Global Indirect Tax Practice of a big-four firm.
He has published numerous articles and books on indirect taxation and is also a consultant for the OECD, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund. At present Dr. Terra is an indirect tax and European tax law lecturer at the Católica Global School of Law in Portugal and at the Lund University in Sweden.
Tsielepis said he was thoroughly excited to organise the very first VAT Forum in Cyprus.
“We could see no better way to commemorate our unique expertise, conclusive knowledge and high principles, than an exclusive VAT Forum in Cyprus of the highest level,” he said adding:
“We will bring together under one roof world-renowned VAT experts, leaders of Cyprus business industries, VAT advisors, policy makers, judges, VAT Officers and many more, to discuss pertinent VAT matters. Three all-star panels and an all-star audience.”
Tsielepis finally extended his gratitude to the Forum’s Platinum Sponsor, EFG Private Bank, Gold Sponsor, Scordis Papapetrou & Co LLC and Silver Sponsor, S. Kaniklides (Cyprus) Ltd, for “recognising the importance of this and for sharing my vision of creating something exclusive and unprecedented to ultimately benefit Cyprus.”
Forum organiser, Chelco VAT Ltd, is based in Limassol and specialises in strategic VAT planning and consulting. It is also a leader in the organisation of high-level VAT seminars and workshops.
For more information, visit the Forum’s microsite at www.chelcoVAT.com/vatforum
Source: InCyprus
