Value-added tax specialist VAT IT has acquired
Meridian VAT Reclaim of Ireland. The companies claim the deal brings together
the world's two largest global VAT reclamation services. Together, they will
trade from 44 offices worldwide. The deal closed in April.
Meridian, which was one of the earliest providers of
VAT recovery, will operate separately from VAT IT, said VAT IT managing
director for Europe Greg Magid. However, Meridian's VAT Tracker product has migrated
to the same technology platform as VAT IT's VAT Cloud. Both are certified by
Concur. "The biggest advantage is the Concur integration that VAT IT has
built, which can pull 900 line items per minute," said Magid. "We
recently pulled more than 18 million data records and invoice images for one of
Concur's largest clients in hours, not days."
Meridian also will adopt VAT IT's reporting
tools, which Magid said are more detailed and offer more analytics. In
addition, Merdian clients will for the first time be able to reclaim VAT
incurred in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and South Korea, and to
recover import VAT from the European Union. Meridian's largest listed clients
also gain access to VAT IT's enterprise service division, which is staffed by
ex-Big Four accountants. Meridian said no changes will be made to its
contractual arrangements with clients and all staff will be retained.
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Correction: A previous version of this article stated that VAT IT and Meridian VAT Reclaim had merged. VAT IT has acquired the latter firm. BTN regrets the error.