The Indirect Tax Brief – GCC & Egypt Edition | Volume 1 | June 2025

The Indirect Tax Updates June 2025

A monthly round-up of selective VAT & Excise tax updates from the GCC and Egypt, tech trends, career shifts across the globe and insights from my upcoming book — Extinction of Tax As We Know It - curated for tax professionals, CFOs, and transformation leaders.

1. Introduction

Welcome to Volume 1 of The Indirect Tax Brief – GCC & Egypt Edition

. This month’s digest captures the accelerating digital transformation of indirect tax—from regulatory updates to AI-powered tools, career trends, and data sophistication. My goal is to blend legal clarity, technological foresight, and professional empowerment, with a spotlight on selective news on VAT, Excise, and e‑invoicing across the GCC, and Egypt.

I invite tax professionals, tech experts, policy scholars, and innovators to collaborate in this initiative. Share your case studies, tools, or insights so we can build a richer, more actionable resource together.

2. Legislative & Regulatory Updates

UAE – Excise Tax: Designated Zones

Decision No. 6 of 2025 clarifies protocols for natural shortages and lost/damaged excise goods in designated zones. Producers must track, document, and report to avoid being treated as released for consumption.

Source: FTA Decision No. 6/2025 — tax.gov.ae PDF

Egypt – VAT Reform Package

VAT rates expanded: • 10% on crude oil production • 14% standard VAT applied to construction services • 1% VAT imposed on sale/rent of administrative units

Sources: Middle East Briefing, Ahram Online

3. Tax Technology & E-Invoicing

UAE – PEPPOL-Aligned e-Invoicing Pilot

Phase 1 (B2G, large B2B) could be expected in early 2026. Businesses must align invoice schemas to PEPPOL BIS Billing 3.0 before pilot launch.

Sources: Thomsonreuters.com

4. Tax careers of the future 

Here are randomly selected sample global job listings reflecting the tech-driven transformation of tax roles:

1. Global Indirect Tax Automation Manager (ERP Integrations) 🔗 LinkedIn 

2. Indirect Tax & Technology Manager (Remote) 🔗 Remotive 

3. Tax Technology & Transformation Manager (Insurance) 🔗 LinkedIn 

4. Tax Senior, Digital Transformation & Innovation – Project Management 🔗 LinkedIn 

5. Manager - Tax Technology & Transformation - Indirect Tax 🔗 LinkedIn

⚠️ These are not endorsements of the role, employer or the process —these are examples provided as insight into shifting role expectations from tax professionals beyond their core domain.

Summary: Tax careers are evolving—demanding AI literacy, ERP fluency, design-thinking and project leadership alongside deep VAT expertise. And, we have not even started in the right earnest.

5. Tax Tech Disruption of the Month

Startups in the tax domain bringing new innovative ways of working to the profession.

Filed – AI-Powered Tax Preparer

Automates return prep (document ingestion, form filling, anomaly detection) across U.S. firm workflows. Adopted by 300+ firms; integrated with tax platforms; VC-backed.

Professional Impact: Entry-level roles shifted towards quality control and exception management—tax staff become workflow designers and supervisors.

TechCrunch reports:

“The company… uses AI to complete the lifecycle of a tax return… It reads documents, uses reasoning to apply each firm’s specific approach to tax strategy, and then enters that data into their existing software systems” axios.com, techcrunch.com, siliconangle.com

• Filed recently raised $17.2 million (led by Northzone) to accelerate automation in tax firms perplexity.ai, techcrunch.com, urbangeekz.com

• Its system “automates the low-value work that consumes nearly half of tax professionals' time,” enabling firms to process up to three times more returns without adding staff 

• Filed integrates with existing tax software, ensuring firms don’t need to overhaul their systems cpapracticeadvisor.com.

Sphere – AI-Driven Global VAT Engine

What it does: Sphere offers a unified API-based solution that automates global sales tax, VAT, and GST compliance. It monitors nexus, handles registration, calculates tax in real-time, and supports filing and remittance across 190+jurisdictions

taxtech500.com, ycombinator.com

Traction & Funding:

• Backed by Y Combinator (Winter 2022) and investors including Felicis Ventures prnewswire.com, ycombinator.com, getsphere.com.

• Trusted by digital-first clients such as Runway AI, Replit, ElevenLabs, and Codeium linkedin.com, ycombinator.com, marketplace.stripe.com.

Professional Impact:

• Tax becomes embedded in transactional systems: Sphere’s APIs integrate directly with billing and ERP stacks, enabling tax calculation at the point of sale linkedin.com, getsphere.com.

• VAT teams assume oversight roles: Professionals now lead nexus tracking, validate tax logic, and manage exceptions—shifting from manual rate-checking to system architecture governance.

TaxGPT – LLM Tax Research Co-Pilot

What it does: TaxGPT is an AI-powered research assistant designed specifically for tax professionals. Trained on federal, state, and international tax data, it can draft memos, summarize legal provisions, and handle document analysis—all within seconds mirrorreview.com, taxgpt.com

Traction & Funding:

• Completed a $4.6 million seed round in February 2025, led by Rebel Fund, Y Combinator, and other investors taxgpt.com, ycombinator.com

• Trusted by over 10,000 CPAs, tax lawyers, and enrolled agents, who have asked more than 200,000 tax queries taxgpt.com

Professional Impact:

• Enables professionals to shift from manual research to judgment-driven application and risk analysis.

• Requires tax staff to oversee, refine, and validate AI-generated insights—ensuring accuracy and maintaining professional accountability taxgpt.com, tx.cpa, ycombinator.com

⚠️ Not sponsored— all of the above startups are presented to illustrate how tech innovations led by agile disruptors are redefining tax and its workflows.

6. Tax data insight of the month : HS Codes

• HS Codes are six-digit global identifiers (with possible national extensions) essential for VAT rates, customs duties, trade privileges.

• Errors can result in incorrect tax calculation, delayed clearance, e‑invoice rejection, and lost FTA benefits.

• With e‑invoicing mandates (UAE, KSA, Egypt), HS codes must be captured and transmitted precisely from ERP systems.

Recommended Actions:

• Set up governance framework 

• Define RACI matrix within the business

• Audit existing product master data for accuracy

• Map in ERP and ensure correct transmission

• Monitor clearance rejections tied to HS code mismatches

• Use tech tools to classify, maintain & update

7. Tax & Technical Focus: Supply Classification in ERPs

As mandates transition to real-time invoice control, correctly classifying a supply as a single supply of service or goods is now critical.

Illustrative Case – Card Protection Plan (C‑349/96): ECJ deemed bundled insurance, support, and issuance as one service supply.

• ERP Pitfall: Treat components separately; invoicing triggered with mixed VAT applications ➝ risk of compliance errors and invoice rejection.

• ERP Solution: Tax engine designates card protection as principal; accessory elements are bundled; single VAT treatment is issued in-line with operational case law.

Key Takeaway: Classifying supply type must be embedded in your ERP tax logic to satisfy both legal precedent and real-time clearance demands. 

While this looks straight forward on the face of it, meeting these compliance needs with the ever increasing needs for real time reporting and e-invoicing mandates requires a surgical lens from the tax side and an enablement on the tech side to deliver feasible and compliant solutions. With tech encroaching human play in the day to day tax compliance and operations, the focus needs to shift from having more and more detective to inherent and preventive controls inbuilt into ERPs, tax engines and compliance tools. 

This needs tax to understand technology and technology to understand tax. Exciting times ahead for the tax tech world !

8. Book Insight – Extinction of Tax As We Know It

Character Spotlight: Abhishek Iyer – The Orchestrator

Every transformation needs a visionary. But real change—the kind that lasts—needs something rarer: an orchestrator.

Meet Abhishek Iyer. Calm. Disciplined. Systems-minded. A man who doesn’t chase the spotlight, but commands it when it matters. He’s not the loudest voice in the room—but often, the one who sees the room most clearly.

He asks the hard questions:

• What happens after the tech rollout?

• Who owns the logic behind a VAT rule in 12 countries?

• Why do some transformations succeed quietly while others collapse under noise?

Abhishek represents a new kind of tax professional—one who sees transformation as an orchestration of data, people, and trust, not just systems and timelines. He believes that ERP, e-invoicing, and automation are tools—not outcomes. His strength lies in building the invisible bridges that make these tools work in practice.

“There’s no such thing as a ‘tech-first’ transformation. The system will reflect what you chose to align—or refused to confront.”

In Extinction of Tax As We Know It, Abhishek’s arc will challenge many assumptions we hold about leadership, implementation, and success. If you’ve ever wondered what kind of mindset makes global tax transformation sustainable, his journey is one to watch.

⚠️ Disclaimer

This newsletter is shared for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute legal, tax, or investment advice, and should not be relied upon as such. All legislative references, case laws, and regulatory updates are sourced from public or officially verified platforms. Job listings, product mentions, and startup highlights are not endorsements or promotions of any company, role, or technology. They are included solely to provide insights into the evolving landscape of indirect tax, digital transformation, and professional roles across the GCC and globally.

Readers are encouraged to consult professional advisors or verified government sources for formal guidance.