Tax in focus: Navigating complexity and enabling transformation
Global Reframing Tax Survey 2025: Middle East findings
In the Middle East, new and changing tax regimes and evolving tax authority practices are keeping tax and finance functions busy. Business leaders face a growing set of competing priorities: tax must play a central role in the business transformation agenda, while at the same time having to navigate new legislation and rising compliance demands.
Our survey findings identify four critical areas vital for building a resilient, future-ready tax function, along with actionable steps organisations can take to embed these strategies effectively.
Challenge the status quo:  Involve tax early in new business and planning decisions and assess risks and foster cross-departmental collaboration.
Maximise tax structures: Optimise across all tax domains - including direct taxes (such as Transfer Pricing), indirect taxes, credits and incentives, and tax asset planning.
Turn regulation into opportunity: Use new regulations as a catalyst for the 'first time right' principle. Tackle challenges in other tax domains through interconnected strategies, including Pillar Two and broader direct tax considerations.
Leverage third-party service providers: To ensure long-term success, businesses must move beyond legacy systems and manual processes to adopt global best practices in tax governance, technology and reporting.
Implement effective change management: Internal business partnering is key to ensure that all stakeholders align early on and understand the strategic value of the tax function, as well as the efficiencies and opportunities that technology and AI can bring to broader operations.
Enhance tax advisory and guidance: Leverage AI to support regulatory advice, address tax technical queries, and identify and collate relevant legislative clauses.
Optimise compliance and planning: AI can streamline tax and data processes, validate tax treatments, manage compliance queries and recommendations more efficiently.
Automate reporting: Use AI to generate reports automatically, draft responses to tax authorities, and analyse emerging tax trends to stay ahead of regulatory developments.
Upskill teams and improve operations: Develop tailored training content on AI, use performance and productivity analytics to identify skills gaps, and deliver personalised learning to build future-ready tax teams.
Align sustainability and tax at both strategic and operational levels: Move beyond compliance and treat sustainability-tax integration as a strategic priority. At the board level, this strengthens governance, enhances transparency and ensures accountability.
Accelerate sustainability-tax automation with AI and digital tools: Deploy GenAI and sustainability-focused digital platforms to improve data accuracy, reporting speed and regulatory readiness while bridging capability gaps and paving the way for tech-enabled tax functions.
Adopt voluntary disclosure standards such as the Global Reporting Initiative 207 (GRI 207), the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), and the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards (ISSB).
Involve tax in sustainable investment planning: Involve tax teams in sustainable investment decisions to unlock value through incentives - such as carbon credits, subsidies, and location-based benefits - linked to green and clean energy initiatives.
Global-Reframing-Tax-Survey-2025-ME video
Our survey highlights a clear call to action: harness the potential of GenAI within the tax function, rethink traditional business operating models, and align tax with sustainability and broader business priorities.
Global Reframing Tax Survey 2025: Middle East findings
Contact us
George Campbell
Senior Executive Adviser, Tax and Legal Services, PwC Middle East
Tel: +973 1711 8800
