Customer since 2018
Municipality of Moerdijk
The Moerdijk municipality was looking for a way to be fiscally in control and found the solution in LIAS Horizontal Supervision.
Municipality of Moerdijk about LIAS Horizontal Monitoring
With LIAS Horizontal Supervision (HT) you, as a municipality, screen your financial records. This is how you determine whether you are fiscally in control. Moerdijk Municipality has been using the LIAS VAT and WKR modules since 2018. Anoeska de Vugt, financial officer, Anita van de Luijtgaarde, HRM benefits advisor and Ömer Sertkaya, former intern tax law and economics, now junior tax advisor, tell more about it. "This digitization has brought us a lot."
Why are you using LIAS Horizontal Monitoring?
Anita: "We find it very important to have and keep control of our finances, tax data and processes ourselves. That's why we wanted to do our own sampling on our VAT and WKR returns. We wanted to check that everything was recorded correctly and that we did not make any unconscious mistakes. The Inland Revenue was also supposed to do a spot check but due to understaffing, this took too long. Unfortunately, our financial package was not set up for this sample. So we decided to start working with LIAS Horizontal Monitoring."
Anoeska: "It is also nice that we are not alone. Dennis Verhaert is our advisor HT and visits regularly to go over things and give additional advice."
Ömer: "I work with a VAT translation table from the tool with which I check whether the description regarding VAT and BCF is still up to date. In addition, from my role I also participate in the working group with which we check whether we meet all tax requirements. But we also look to the future. How do we together translate the rules into practice? We are constantly working on progress."
Anoeska: "Besides analyzing whether we have booked things well in the past, we also use the reports to adjust policies so that we make better choices for the municipality in advance.
Does LIAS Horizontal Monitoring facilitate your structural tax work?
Anoeska: "This digitization has brought us a lot. LIAS HT makes my work a lot easier. Previously I spent three weeks calculating the blending percentage based on timesheets. Now we get this from the LIAS HT tool with a well-supported VAT translation table, it is calculated at the touch of a button. We also use LIAS for the BCF declaration and for task checks for VAT and the WKR. Now I have much more time left to create value for the Municipality of Moerdijk. My work has become more enjoyable as a result."
How do you work with LIAS Horizontal Monitoring?
Anita: "The module for the Working Costs Regulation (LIAS WKR) works with a pre-filled list of keywords. By looking at expenses objectively, by means of a keyword analysis, you can easily pick out wrongly registered amounts or just not mentioned amounts. We do this with audit reports that allow us to filter out the errors we previously missed. The tax laws and regulations are sometimes not easy and because the tool makes findings when laws change I stay more alert myself. Then I look for substantiation in certain doubtful cases and enter into a well-prepared discussion with our tax inspector."
Ömer: "I work with a VAT translation table from the tool with which I check whether the description regarding VAT and BCF is still up to date. In addition, from my role I also participate in the working group with which we check whether we meet all tax requirements. But we also look to the future. How do we together translate the rules into practice? We are constantly working on progress."
Anoeska: "Besides analyzing whether we have booked things well in the past, we also use the reports to adjust policies so that we make better choices for the municipality in advance.
Could you still miss LIAS Horizontal Monitoring?
Anita: "We can no longer do without LIAS HT. Besides the fact that we have digitized the process around horizontal supervision, there is now an organization-wide awareness that taxation is not a party of one department. It is now looked at from a broad composition. Think of a solid cooperation with for example Concern Control where not only accountability is looked at but also looking ahead and improving policy."
Anoeska: "So not only do we follow the rules of the game from the tax authorities, but we simply have everything in order. And of course we also have that responsibility towards our residents and employees."
What are you working on now?
We are in discussions with the tax authorities about further development of Horizontal Supervision. After a self-assessment, we made a risk analysis. We are now taking steps to get the control measures in order and are looking forward to the next step in our tax control.
About Municipality of Moerdijk
Moerdijk is a municipality in the province of North Brabant. The municipality has more than 37,000 inhabitants. Moerdijk is in terms of area, one of the largest municipalities in North Brabant.
The main town of the municipality is Zevenbergen. On April 1, 1998, the name of the municipality of Zevenbergen was changed to that of Moerdijk. Shortly before that, namely on January 1, 1997, the municipalities of Fijnaart and Heijningen, Klundert, Standdaarbuiten and Willemstad were added to the municipality of Zevenbergen. In the latter core, the town hall is now located.
It is challenging to live in a municipality with a large industrial and port area.
The name Moerdijk is derived from the term moor-dicken. Moor or marsh is swamp in which there is a lot of peat. A moerdijk was constructed to create a (temporary) polder in the peat to extract salt. The Moerdijk Bridge is the bridge over the Hollands Diep named after the village of Moerdijk. (source Wikipedia).
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