Merging of TAX - VAT Services in Cyprus
The Merging of TAX - VAT Units in Cyprus was an ad-hoc project, which has taken place between 7-20 Nov 2013. Following the collapse of the Cyprus banking system in 2012, the EC and international monitoring organizations have put pressure to the Cyprus government to fulfill an obligation which was long past due: the merging of the VAT and TAX systems; they were two separate independent departments, using different laws, different policies and procedures and lacking any electronic communication. The Cyprus government, specifically the Ministry of Finance, asked for help to facilitate the smooth merging of these operations and overpass the human factor and the unwillingness for change. Noteworthy was the extremely short timeline (within weeks) and the fact that the government paid insignificant consulting fees (less than a few thousand) for a project that would save a loss of almost one million a day; the reason being that due to time restrictions it would not have been possible to go through a tender process.
