Benchmarking Indirect Tax in a data-driven era

From tightening data expectations to the spread of real time digital reporting, indirect tax is moving rapidly up the corporate agenda. Value Added Tax (VAT) and Goods and Services Tax (GST) are no longer seen only as compliance costs; they are now recognized as strategic issues that affect cash flow, risk, and the quality of financial data across the business.

The 2026 Indirect Tax Benchmarking Survey explores how leading organizations are responding to this shift. It examines the mounting pressure on data quality, the constraints posed by legacy ERP systems and manual workarounds, and the growing role of technology, including AI, automation, and analytics, in managing today’s more demanding VAT/GST landscape.

The report aims to provide tax leaders with practical insight into how operating models, data, and technology are evolving. It helps organizations in benchmarking their own approaches, understanding the key challenges, from skills gaps to fragmented e-invoicing ownership, and identifying where to invest to build a more robust, future ready indirect tax function.

Stefanie Dreher

Director, Indirect Tax | Tax, Legal & Accountancy

KPMG in Belgium

mail
call

Key actions to help indirect tax teams prepare for the future

Improve data quality and cut manual fixes

Use AI and stronger system controls to lift VAT/GST data quality and reduce corrective work.

Centralize and scale compliance

Move toward more centralized and externally supported VAT/GST compliance models to boost consistency and control.

Build technology and process capabilities

Develop the indirect tax team’s skills in data, technology and process design to meet new digital demands.

Reinforce VAT/GST control frameworks

Extend control frameworks to focus on transaction level controls, especially in higher risk countries and regimes.

Define clear ownership and align on e-invoicing

Clarify responsibilities across Tax, Finance and IT, encourage closer collaboration, and streamline tooling between global platforms and mandatory local solutions.

What Belgian businesses can learn

VAT data quality takes center stage in Belgium's digital tax transformation

The 2026 KPMG Indirect Tax Benchmarking Survey confirms what many Belgian tax leaders are already experiencing: indirect tax is undergoing a fundamental transformation. Tax authorities are moving towards increasingly digital, transaction-level oversight, while organizations are expected to manage growing volumes of VAT data with greater speed, accuracy and transparency.

The survey reveals that 58% of organizations now identify data quality as their biggest VAT/GST challenge, making it the single most important concern for indirect tax functions worldwide. This represents a significant increase compared to 44% in 2021, highlighting how rapidly VAT compliance has evolved into a data management discipline.

From a Belgian perspective, these findings are particularly relevant. Mandatory B2B e-invoicing is no longer a future discussion. Organizations across Belgium have already implemented structured electronic invoicing solutions since 1 January 2026. However, e-invoicing should not be viewed as the finish line. It is rather the first stage in a broader digital VAT journey where e-reporting, real-time controls and transaction-level reporting will place even greater scrutiny on VAT data.

The message is clear: organizations that focus solely on technology implementation without addressing the quality of their underlying data may find themselves exposed to compliance risks, operational inefficiencies and increased tax authority attention.

Preparing for Belgium's next digital VAT chapter

The findings of the 2026 KPMG Indirect Tax Benchmarking Survey highlight a broader reality: VAT compliance is becoming data-driven, technology-enabled and increasingly real-time.

For Belgian businesses, mandatory e-invoicing represented an important milestone, but it was only one step in a larger transformation. The next challenge is e-reporting, which is expected as of 2028 and which will place even greater emphasis on transaction-level transparency, governance and data accuracy.

The organizations that will thrive in this new environment are not necessarily those that implement the latest technology first. They are the organizations that establish trusted VAT data, clear accountability, effective controls and sustainable governance structures.

With 58% of organizations identifying data quality as their greatest VAT challenge, the lesson from the survey is unmistakable: before implementing e-invoicing or preparing for future e-reporting obligations, make sure your VAT data is ready. Clean, governed and reliable data is rapidly becoming the foundation of future VAT compliance and a key enabler of tax transformation in Belgium.