MasterCard Automates Tax Reclaims With Biz Card Data

MasterCard announced Wednesday (Feb. 3) that it has paired up with cross-border value-added tax recovery service provider VAT IT to automate businesses’ tax recovery.

According to reports, the partnership, which launched in the Asia-Pacific region, uses cloud technology to help businesses reclaim foreign VAT, a process the firms said is traditionally cumbersome and bureaucratic.

Their collaboration, called VAT Cloud, involves VAT IT automating the collection of data from corporate MasterCard credit cards into the tax office and identifying potential VAT reclaims within that transaction data. The venture then organizes that information into compliant VAT return formats and files with the appropriate office.

“For any business today, foreign transactions, employee travel expenses and their accompanying foreign tax create a significant cost burden to businesses,” said MasterCard Head of Commercial Products and Solutions for the Asia-Pacific region Philip Glickman. “Whether you’re a startup, an SME or a large corporate organization, timely and efficient VAT recovery can help save your business considerable time and money.”

The executive added that the tax recovery solution also helps businesses ditch paper.

MasterCard and VAT IT launched the initiative earlier this year. Businesses can register for the service through their MasterCard card-issuing bank or with VAT IT directly, the companies said. The solution supports transaction data collection across 24 nations in the Asia-Pacific region.

This isn’t the only move MasterCard has made in the area of B2B payments in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2014, the credit card company partnered with Newgen to launch a digital procure-to-pay service for businesses in the market.