In Thomas’s tax career spanning more than a decade, he has worked at tier 1 tax law firms in Brussels and Paris. Thomas moved to the Gulf in the beginning of 2017. He provides high quality and innovative tax advice to clients.
He has been involved in several high profile deals and has worked for blue chip and quoted companies and institutions in various sectors (financial sector, real estate sector, retail, manufacturing and the public sector).
In recent years he was heavily involved in European tax policy projects, as well as in projects with several European governments and governments in the Gulf region due to the pending introduction of VAT.
Thomas joined his former university, the renowned Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, in teaching an introductory course on tax law to master students. He also teaches VAT in the first Tax LL.M in the Gulf at Paris Sorbonne Abu Dhabi. He publishes regularly in international books and tax technical magazines and is a regular speaker at international events.
Thomas holds a law degree of the Catholic University of Leuven (cum laude) and a tax masters degree of Solvay Business School (magna cum laude). He is hands-on, proactive and combines an extensive technical skill set with a sound understanding of what makes businesses tick.
Thomas loves standup comedy and cartoons.
Senior Counsel
omar@aurifer.tax
+973 384 07759
Omar Hisham is Senior Counsel at Aurifer Middle East Tax Consultancy and has recently assisted companies around the GCC region in VAT including more than a dozen insurance companies and other financial services entities, specifically in the KSA and Bahrain, in transitioning into the newly introduced GCC VAT regime with an ‘organisation-wide’ VAT implementation; a majority of his clients tend to re-engage and continue to be retained as clients for VAT advisory and post-VAT implementation support.
In addition, Omar has the Malaysian GST (the Malaysian equivalent of VAT) experience with a specific focus on financial services (both conventional and Islamic) as well having performed indirect tax due diligence exercises for a number of multinational M&A projects and Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance programme.
Omar also has an extensive supply chain indirect tax planning experience having assisted his clients on other indirect tax matters such as service tax, sales tax, excise duty, customs duty exemptions, import/ export and customs facilities procedures, tariff classifications and customs ruling applications and appeals.
Omar is interested in tax technology and the pragmatic simplification of indirect tax processes and procedures for businesses.
Omar is a member of both ACCA UK and Malaysian Institute of Accountants.
Counsel
nirav@aurifer.tax
+971 54 430 1949
Nirav is a qualified Chartered Accountant with more than nine years of experience in indirect taxes such as GST, Service tax, VAT, Excise tax and Customs. He has assisted several MNC clients in GST and VAT implementation in India, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain since 2017. He has been instrumental in leading end-to-end VAT implementation projects for clients operating in the business of insurance, real estate and construction, manufacturing and trading of consumer and industrial goods, hospitality and travel and logistics.
He has been instrumental in providing advisory support to clients for assessing the GST/VAT impact on their business including transaction restructuring to mitigate tax risk and cost. He has conducted several workshops and training programs on GST/VAT for clients in the Financial Services industry, FMCG, Industrial Goods sector, Power sector, Non-Banking Financial Corporations and few others. He has conducted training for the key stakeholders of businesses to discuss the impact of GST/VAT. He has managed various Service tax compliance and litigation assignments in the Banking and Financial Sector, Comprehensive Tax Reviews involving analysis of Free Trade Agreements with SAARC Nations along with the detailed review of Rules of Origin.
International Tax/M&A Partner
ellie@aurifer.tax
+971 50 370 9053
Ellie is a tax and finances professional with over 15 years of experience in delivering international tax services to multinational companies, on the domestic and cross-border tax aspects of their business model, mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and collaborations. She started her career in the Big Four accounting firms - Deloitte (Amsterdam/New York) and PwC (Dubai). Before joining Aurifer, she was the Tax Lead for NEMEA and Tax Divestment Lead for EM at Takeda Pharmaceuticals.
She studied in Amsterdam and has LLM in Corporate Law/Public Notary Law, LLM in Tax Law, and LLM in Finance and Law.
Outside work, she is always looking for a ways to relax, and she enjoys running, golf and reading books the most.
Our team is composed of approximately 10 consultants with different educational and cultural backgrounds. All of them graduated from prestigious universities and colleges. Ambition is what they have in common as well as striving for customer centricity providing high quality services. All consultants have prior tax experience and have teaching experience.
