Forgive me, I realise we're only days away from Christmas and here I am writing about tax and immigration.
But as we move into a year that looks set to throw up several uncertainties, these are two areas that it seems travel managers and their wider stakeholders will need to ensure are anything but ambiguous.
Governments are said to be taking a tougher line on enforcement and audits are increasing. Nick Bacon, partner at EY People Advisory Services says there are more measures being put in place to stop tax avoidance and 'everyone' is under more scrutiny. It's a way for authorities to get revenue and there are substantial consequences ranging from jail sentences to full investigations and monetary penalties.
So, while tax and immigration aren't directly travel issues, the pressure to 'be audit ready' may change who travels where, how often they travel and what business is conducted in each country. Plus, if the mobile workforce is to change travel as much as our Experts think, then there could be more confusion.
There's been increased attention in these areas for a few years but it has cropped up twice for me recently. The first instance was at an event held by EY for tax and mobility managers. It may be worth contacting those internal departments, if you aren't talking to them already, as they could be looking at regulation and amendments that might impact business travel.
The topics then also came up during a discussion I had with Concur's president Mike Eberhard and VP chief of staff, global distribution Christopher Juneau. "There's more of an onus on the travel manager to track and provide preventative measures to ensure people don't spend, or at least have the knowledge of spending, time where they're crossing the duration of their visa or tax," Eberhard explained. "There's a continued momentum on the eco-system to offer more plug-ins such as whether people are staying longer than the tax jurisdiction so companies don't create a personal or corporate liability."
Juneau added, "EU law is changing around tax implications and Brexit has created more uncertainty. Travel and expense can expose who may be somewhere and might be pushing the limit."
Rather than write them out I'll end with the graphic below that outlines some of the risks and implications.
Source: EY