Tax compliance is frequently delegated entirely to the finance team, and leadership only becomes involved when an assessment or penalty arrives. A short, structured management review — performed regularly — catches most issues before they become expensive. These are the areas worth looking at.
Filing and payment discipline
Confirm that every return the business is required to file has been filed on time, and that the corresponding payments were made. Late filings and payments attract interest and penalties that compound quietly.
- Corporate income tax returns and instalment payments
- PAYE and statutory payroll deductions
- Withholding tax on supplier, rent, dividend and service payments
- VAT and related levies
Withholding tax on payments
Withholding tax is one of the most common areas of exposure because the obligation sits with the payer. Review whether the right rates were applied to the right payments, whether tax was withheld on payments to non-residents, and whether certificates were issued and remitted on time.
VAT: input claims and output declarations
Check that input VAT is only claimed on valid tax invoices for business expenses, that output VAT has been charged on all taxable supplies, and that exempt and zero-rated treatments can be justified. Reconciling declared sales to the accounting records is a quick and revealing test.
Payroll and employee benefits
Benefits in kind, allowances, contractor arrangements and expatriate staff are recurring sources of payroll tax disputes. Confirm that all taxable benefits are captured and that contractor relationships would not be reclassified as employment on review.
Related-party and cross-border transactions
Transactions with related parties — management fees, loans, shared services, royalties — should be priced on an arm's-length basis and supported by documentation. Cross-border payments raise additional withholding and treaty questions that need to be resolved before, not after, payment.
Disputes, positions and reconciliations
Finally, review any open enquiries or objections, the tax positions being taken on unusual transactions, and the reconciliation between the tax accounts in the ledger and the balances on the revenue authority's records. Differences here are often the first sign that something has been missed.
Making it routine
None of this requires management to become tax experts. A quarterly review against this list, supported by a periodic independent tax health check, is enough to keep tax risk visible and manageable at leadership level.
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