The 91st tax seminar has been held in Seoul from December 7th to 12nd in 2015. The main issues about International VAT and GST guidelines have been discussed during the seminar.

The global spread of Value Added Taxes (VAT; also called Goods and Services Taxes in certain jurisdictions) has been the most remarkable development in taxation over the last 50 years. VAT has now been implemented in over 150 countries where it raises on average one fifth of the tax revenue and still more countries are adopting it.

A growing number of countries that operate a VAT are considering fundamental reform to increase the revenue raising capacity of the tax and to address inefficiencies of the current system. It is a key priority for the OECD to actively support countries in this exercise.

The objective of this VAT workshop is to share policy analysis and experience and to identify best practices in respect of a number of key issues of VAT design and operation. These issues are:

· Applying VAT to cross-border trade in services

· The VAT treatment of financial services

· The VAT treatment of real estate

· The VAT grouping arrangements

· Simplified methods for calculating VAT.

Tax Programme, OECD Korea Policy Centre