International VAT Conference

Before joining the European Commission, Ludwig has worked as a tax inspector with the Belgian Ministry of Finance (1989 -1996) and when he joined the Commission more than 20 years ago, he was active in the anti-dumping policy (1996-1997). Subsequently he moved to DG TAXUD, where he was responsible for VAT and administrative cooperation and the fight against VAT fraud. Ludwig was also responsible for the different enlargement processes where he had to verify that candidate countries had adapted their VAT legislation and administrative capacity in order to be allowed to join the EU. He negotiated the different derogations they requested and provided several training sessions both on site and in the countries concerned. When active in the unit dealing with administrative cooperation and fight against VAT fraud he was responsible for the setting up of the Eurofisc network.

Currently he is active in the VAT policy unit of DG TAXUD and responsible for the VAT e-Commerce package, the numerous derogation requests and most recently with the ViDA (VAT in the digital Age) proposal. Ludwig chairs the different working groups whose competence falls withing the remit of the unit (Groupe on the Future of VAT, the VAT Expert Group and the VAT Committee). As acting Head of Unit, he follows all other files within the competence of the unit, including relations with the customs colleagues.

Ludwig also takes part in the meetings at OECD, WCO and IOTA and in bilateral negotiations such as for the Agreement on Administrative cooperation with Norway and Brexit that resulted in the bilateral agreements.

He has a Master Law degree (University of Ghent) and a Master Degree in Business Administration (EHSAL - Brussels).

Raffaello Pietropaolo completed his law degree at the University of Fribourg before starting his professional career at the Swiss Federal Tax Administration in the VAT legal Division. From 2008 to 2016, he gained further expertise in national and international VAT at PwC. Since 2016, he is the Vice Director of the Swiss Federal Tax Administration and Head of the Swiss VAT Administration which includes the legal, audit and collection Division. He represents Switzerland at the OECD (Forum on Tax Administration and Working Party No. 9 on Consumption Taxes) and IOTA. Furthermore, he often holds seminars and regularly publishes on VAT topics. 

Ralf Imstepf is co-head of the VAT legal department at the Swiss Federal Tax Administration (SFTA) and an assistant professor of tax law at the University of St. Gallen. He is also a delegate to the OECD‘s Working Party 9 (consumption taxes). He previously worked as a lawyer and tax consultant at the law firm in Zurich and as a law clerk at the Federal Administrative Court in St. Gallen. He regularly lectures and publishes on tax and administrative procedural law.

Thomas Ecker is Head of the International Indirect Taxes Unit at the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF). He represents Austria in VAT and other indirect tax matters at Council and in numerous working groups at the EU and OECD-level. He has previously worked as Policy Advisor at the OECD Consumption Taxes Unit and was Deputy Head of the VAT Unit at the BMF. He lectures at universities and is editor and author of tax literature. 

Ian is a Deputy Director in Indirect Tax Directorate in HMRC, responsible for International VAT policy. He started his career with HMRC (and its predecessor department HM Customs & Excise) over 30 years ago and has worked in a number of roles, mostly in VAT but also other indirect taxes. For the last 20 years, Ian has been working on VAT policy, including a three-year secondment to HM Treasury (2008-2011), and has broad experience across a range of VAT policy areas, including extensive experience in international forums, including the OECD.

Rebecca Millar is a Professor at the University of Sydney Law School, where she specialises in GST and comparative VAT law. She has been a regular Guest Professor and/or visiting lecturer at the Institute for Austrian and International Tax Law (WU) (2016-2023), Xiamen University (2023), the IBFD in Amsterdam (2017, 2018), and Osgoode Hall Law School (2015). She is a pro-bono academic advisor to OECD Working Party 9 on Consumption Taxes and a member of the UN VAT Subcommittee. Her contributions to comparative tax law research on the VAT ‘place of taxation’ rules, and her work with developing countries, were recognised by the Women in IFA Network in their 2019 publication Recognising 100 Years Of Women In Tax. 

Marlon van Amersfoort is with Shell International BV since 2010. Currently, he leads the Indirect Tax EMEA team, where he oversees all indirect tax matters across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In this role, Marlon and his team are the custodians of the internal indirect tax control framework, including the successful implementation of indirect tax-related technology projects. Additionally, Marlon is an integral part of the Shell Global Indirect Tax Policy team. Before his tenure at Shell, Marlon accumulated a wealth of experience as a VAT practitioner with ‚Big 4‘ firms, a journey that began in 2000. Externally, he serves as the chair of the VAT Expert-Committee of the Confederation of Netherlands Industry (VNO-NCW) and actively participates in various indirect tax committees, including those with Business Europe and BIAC/OECD. Marlon is also an occasional speaker at Tilburg University. Marlon holds a Master of Laws degree from the University of Utrecht, specializing in Tax Law.

Giacomo is a Partner of Syntesia Policy & Economics. He is a senior EU policy expert, with more than 15 years of experience in the legal and economic analysis of EU policies, and in particular VAT. He contributed to or led multiple assignments for the European Commission - DG TAXUD, and in particular the study on VAT in the Digital Age, VAT travel and tourism, the evaluation of VAT invoicing rules, the studies on the taxation of financial services, and the study on the VAT gap in the EU. He currently is the Team Leader for the European Commission study on the challenges of VAT beyond VAT in the Digital Age, which examines the existing weaknesses of the EU VAT system and possible reforms over three areas: simplification, digitalisation, and greening of VAT.

Barbara has worked as a référendaire at the Court of Justice and the General Court since 2016. Prior to that, she worked for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the department of European Law. She was a trainee judge in the Netherlands in commercial, administrative and criminal law and has worked as a prosecutor and deputy judge. Barbara contributes on a regular basis to the Dutch case-law review Nederlandse Jurisprudentie (Wolters Kluwer). She has written for the case-law section of the journal SEW (Tijdschrift voor Europees en economisch recht) and published on European criminal law.

In the first 9 years of her career Elze Terra was part of the indirect tax advisory practice of EY Netherlands with a focus on digital commerce.  A role she combined with different academic efforts until taking on an in-house role for digital travel company Booking.com in 2018. Currently, Elze holds the position of Director Indirect Tax at Booking Holdings which involves overseeing the indirect tax function of six primary online travel and consumer-facing brands: Booking.com, KAYAK, priceline, Agoda.com, Rentalcars.com, and OpenTable.

Raymond Feen is an international VAT consultant located in the Netherlands. His career in VAT started in 1996 with a big 4 firm. He then moved to the industry for several years and returned to the big 4. In 2010 he started his own firm ALLVAT supporting clients from all over the world. Raymond is frequent speaker at international seminars and conferences, organizes trainings for companies, the Federation of Dutch exporters, the Chamber of Commerce and he is a member of the Committee of the International VAT Expert Academy [IVEA]. He is currently secretary to the board of the International VAT Association (IVA) and program director of the IVA University. 

Jon is Director, International Tax Affairs at Microsoft, responsible for tax policy matters for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.  His role involves ensuring awareness and understanding of forthcoming tax policy developments and assessing the impact for the business.  

He currently chairs the AmCham EU Tax Committee and is a past chair of the DigitalEurope Tax Working Group.  He is a member of the OECD VAT Technical Advisory Group and sits on the board of Tax Foundation Europe.

He has worked in international tax for over thirty years.  Previous experience includes responsibility for tax at Skype, together with various roles with “Big 4” accounting firms. 

He is based in the UK and is a Chartered Accountant and member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation.

Prof Dr Ad van Doesum is Professor of European Value Added Tax at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. He is also the Head of PwC’s Knowledge Centre in the Netherlands and is an honorary judge in the ‘s-Gravenhage (The Hague) Court.

Professor Van Doesum has broad experience in national and international VAT Law and particular expertise in the complex VAT issues attached to collaboration between organizations. He received his Law Degree (Tax Law) at Leiden University, the Netherlands, in 1998. In 2009, he obtained his doctorate with his thesis ‘Contractual Cooperative Arrangements and VAT’.

Ad van Doesum has authored and co-authored numerous publications on VAT law and is regularly invited to speak on indirect taxation at conferences and seminars around the world. He is on various editorial boards, is a member of the permanent committee of contributors to leading tax publications and is a correspondent for various other journals.

Piet Battiau is the Head of the VAT Unit in the Centre for Tax Policy and Administration (CTPA) of the OECD. He is responsible for the OECD's work on indirect taxes, including the International VAT/GST Guidelines; the OECD recommendations for addressing the VAT challenges of digital trade; helping tax authorities to enforce VAT compliance in digital trade; the OECD’s VAT capacity building work incl. through the development of Regional VAT Digital Toolkits; the Consumption Tax Trends publication; and the OECD Global Forum on VAT. Current priorities include the development of guiding principles for the design and implementation of “digital continuous transactional reporting” (DCTR) regimes for VAT and international policy dialogue on the VAT treatment of crypto-assets. 

Piet joined the OECD in 2011. He began his career as a tax inspector for the Belgian Ministry of Finance in the early 1990’s before moving on to an international financial institution in 1995, where he became Head of International Taxation and subsequently Head of Public Policy. He was also Chairman of the Fiscal Committee of the European Banking Federation. He studied Law in Brussels and Ghent and holds a Law degree and a degree in Tax Science. 

Karl-Heinz is a Global VAT/GST Practitioner with over 30 years of international VAT/GST technical and practical experience (Tax authorities, Big 4 and 19 years in Industry). He is actively involved in a wide variety of industry and expert policy groups on an EU and international level -  eg, as chair of the Business at OECD VAT/GST work to the OECD and a member of the EU Commission´s VAT Expert Group. In 2021 Karl-Heinz founded an independent international Thought Leadership, Strategy and Policy Affairs company with domain knowledge and understanding of the global VAT/GST policy landscape.

Christian advises clients on all aspects of national and international VAT issues and specializes in customs and excise duty matters. His particular focus is on import VAT related issues as well as optimizing cross-border supply chains and processing schemes. Christian has extensive experience in carrying out SAP-VAT audits and customs reviews. He also assists clients with external audits and represents them in dealings with the tax authorities and before the tax courts. His clients range from individuals to international groups. Prior to joining KMLZ, Christian spent several years working in the VAT department of a large tax consultancy firm. He regularly lectures on VAT and customs related topics, as well as regularly publishing comments, articles and annotations in these areas.