MANAMA: Key decision-makers from Bahrain’s insurance industry met at the Capital Club Bahrain to discuss pressing VAT questions at a roundtable hosted by professional services firm Keypoint.

Omar Hisham and Zainab Mearaj, advisers to the insurance industry who have worked on engagements with insurance companies in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia as well as Bahrain, led discussions on a number of issues for insurers, reinsurers and brokers.

Mubeen Khadir, a senior director and head of tax for the Keypoint group, welcomed the opportunity to address pressing concerns for a critical segment of Bahrain’s financial services industry.

“Insurance globally is recognised as a complicated, specialist industry. VAT has added an extra layer of complication – and we know that regulators across the world are already struggling to develop and maintain consistent approaches to the issues that insurance raises. As a leading service provider to the insurance industry, we were delighted to share our experience and industry focus with a range of insurance companies.”

Mr Hisham, a manager with Keypoint who is recognised as a trusted adviser to the insurance industry, said that insurance companies should develop a consistent approach to industry-wide issues, rather than developing individual stances that may or may not be accepted by the National Bureau of Revenue (NBR), Bahrain’s tax authority.

Ms Mearaj, a leading Bahraini VAT adviser to the insurance industry who has worked on more than a dozen VAT implementations for insurance businesses in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, said that insurers across the region were struggling with aspects of VAT, not least because regulators often did not have a strong understanding of the issues the industry raised.

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