OECD appoints Piet Battiau as Head of the Consumption Taxes Unit

Piet Battiau, a Belgian national, has been appointed Head of the Consumption Taxes Unit as of 1 March 2011.

The Consumption Taxes Unit is responsible for the OECD’s expanding work on consumption taxes, in particular the development of International VAT/GST Guidelines aimed at providing guidance to governments in applying Value Added Taxes (also called Goods and Services Tax in some countries) on cross-border trade. The Consumption Taxes Unit also supports work on other consumption tax matters, including their economic impact and sharing of knowledge to help countries reduce the incidence of VAT abuses.

Mr. Battiau began his career as a tax inspector for the Belgian Ministry of Finance before moving on to KBC, a Brussels based international financial group where he became Head of International Taxation and subsequently Head of Public Policy, managing the group’s relations with national and international institutions in respect of all tax and regulatory matters.

Mr. Battiau was also Chairman of the Fiscal Committee of the European Banking Federation, representing the European banking sector (over 5.500 banks) on policy matters in direct as well as indirect tax. He was a member of the BIAC Tax Committee and OECD’s Technical Advisory Group to Working Party 9 on Consumption Taxes.

He studied Law at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels and the Ghent University and holds a law degree and a degree in Tax Science from the Fiscale Hogeschool in Brussels.