Leading Global Strategy: Expanding Services, Elevating Client Experience
As Global Managing Director at WTax, I’m responsible for overseeing WTax’s strategic direction, product and front-office functions. My role focuses on consistently expanding our service offering to meet client needs, ensuring that our client-facing teams deliver exceptional service and that we continue to expand our footprint across new and existing markets. A key part of this involves aligning our commercial strategy with client needs, collaborating closely with our regional teams and ensuring we stay responsive to an evolving regulatory environment.
Overcoming Fragmentation in Tax: Tech-Powered, Opportunity-Driven Strategy
Many organizations underestimate how complex and fragmented the withholding tax relief and recovery process is. Each jurisdiction has its own rules, deadlines and documentation standards, making manual processes vulnerable to delays and errors. Another blind spot is assuming current processes catch every opportunity, when in fact many additional opportunities have often not been pursued due to complex requirements, immense administrative burden or limited resources.
Improving relief and reclaim outcomes therefore starts with better identification of eligible opportunities. At WTax, automation has proven especially valuable here. Central to our approach is our proprietary rules engine, developed over more than a decade that assesses the intersection of investment types, ownership structures and jurisdiction-specific tax rules. It runs these combinations against transaction data to identify all reclaimable events and determine the optimal recovery path across multiple markets.
Central to our approach is our proprietary rules engine, developed over more than a decade that assesses the intersection of investment types, ownership structures and jurisdiction-specific tax rules
Automation also streamlines what follows. For instance, our systems reconcile the required documentation and check for gaps or inconsistencies before any claim progresses. Together, these tools reduce manual workload, accelerate timelines and improve the accuracy and success rate of claims. The result is a more streamlined and scalable recovery process for our clients.
Adapting to Global Scrutiny: Strong Infrastructure Meets Smart Governance
Tax authorities around the world are tightening their oversight of withholding tax claims. Driven by global initiatives like the OECD’s BEPS framework and past fraud scandals, we’re seeing more rigorous audits, cross-border cooperation and detailed query requests. Jurisdictions such as Switzerland have notably increased the frequency of requests for additional information, while others like Germany have introduced digital portals. These changes place greater responsibility on claimants to demonstrate eligibility and remain compliant with evolving processes.
In addition, the upcoming FASTER Directive which will go live in 2030 requires an immense amount of planning by the industry. It’s crucial to stay abreast of guidance notes and implementing acts which will assist the industry in making sure they comply when this does come into effect.
To future-proof recovery processes, firms should prioritize three things: strong data governance, flexible infrastructure and access to specialized expertise. At WTax, we maintain full ownership of our technology infrastructure, which allows us to adapt quickly to regulatory changes like Germany’s DIP. KaFE interface and MikaDiv reporting. We also combine our automation tools with expert oversight from in-house lawyers and CPAs. This allows us to handle even the most complex cases (such as those involving European Court of Justice rulings) with the precision they require.
Data and Documentation in Focus: Accuracy Enables Faster, Compliant Recovery
The process relies heavily on data being accurate, reconciled correctly and matched across various platforms. With regards to documentation, the requirements to prove entitlement to reclaims have drastically increased. Many jurisdictions now require not only accurate documentation but also the ability to demonstrate beneficial ownership more thoroughly and explain dividend-related trading activity.
We take a layered approach to validation. Our platform includes several automated checkpoints to detect inconsistencies early in the process, followed by reviews conducted by tax professionals. This quality assurance process ensures claims are accurate, complete and fully aligned with jurisdictional requirements. It also means we can respond swiftly to tax authority queries, which is proving increasingly critical for successful recovery.
Elevating Tax Leadership: Success-Based, Value-Driven Transformation
The first step is recognizing that withholding tax recovery is often undervalued, though it represents a significant opportunity to boost financial performance and demonstrate fiduciary care. Reclaimed taxes can be reinvested into the portfolio, improving performance and minimizing leakage. Efficient recovery also aligns with broader governance goals. Many of our clients are ESG-focused investors and ensuring that no eligible tax is forfeited reinforces their commitment to transparency and accountability. At WTax, we share these principles, which is why we operate on a success-based fee model, ensuring our incentives are closely tied to client outcomes.
Finance and operations leaders who modernize this part of their business are not just reducing risk. They are building a more responsive, cost-effective and value-generating tax function that contributes meaningfully to their organization’s bottom line.
