The Federal Tax Authority organized the fourth Virtual Workshop for Tax Agents, which was focused on eight main areas of work, including amendments to the Law on Tax Procedure and Tax Treatment of Designated Areas; the Redetermining of Administrative Penalties; the New Design Mark on Tobacco Products; the Public Clarifications on the Registration of Individual Institutions and the Return of Value Added Tax to Citizens on the Building New Residences, Mobile Phones, Minutes and Data Available to Employees for business purposes and introducing zero rate of VAT (0%) for specified healthcare services.
The FTA seeks to launch workshops on a regular basis to support the local business community and provide businesses with accurate and up-to-date information to enable them to comply with tax laws voluntarily.
The workshop was also dedicated to explaining the recent legal amendments to the Federal Law on Tax Procedures and extending the timeframe within which a person may appeal or rebut the FTA's decisions. It also explained aspects relating to reducing the requirements for penalty payments and developing an alternative solution for objections and appeals by government agencies, and the mechanism for exemption from the payment of administrative penalties in instalments and refunds.
The workshop also dealt with the Law on Tax Treatment provisions applicable to designated areas where advice was provided to avoid double taxation of goods in designated zones and not to register non-resident suppliers’ shipping and delivering such goods. Article 51 of the UAE Cabinet Decision No. 52 of 2017 on implementing the regulation of Federal Decree-Law No. 8 of 2017 on VAT was amended by Cabinet Decision No. 88 of 2021 and was put into action on 30 October 2021. The FTA provided a detailed explanation of the executive regulation of the amendment to Article 51 of the decision of the Cabinet on the implementing regulation of the Federal Decree-Law on Value Added Tax.
It also explained the decision to redefine outstanding and unpaid administrative fines and the ways for benefiting from the decision not to require 70% of all administrative penalties.
With regard to the new-design hallmarks on tobacco and its byproducts, the FTA provided information on legislative amendments and issued Decision No. 3 of 2021 on the subject, which adopts new-design hallmarks and removes the old ones according to specific dates. The FTA provided an explanation about the date of application of the resolution on October 1, 2021, for trading in local and free markets, arrival halls, and departure halls on January 1, 2022.
With regard to refunds of VAT to UAE citizens for building new residences, the FTA provided a detailed explanation of the relevant laws and the efforts to facilitate refunds, as the application period was extended to be available within 12 months of the completion of the construction of new housing.
The workshop also discussed the requirements for recovering the input tax incurred for mobile phones, call minutes and data packages for business purposes.