The first full-year corporate tax period has begun in the United Arab Emirates which has bound all businesses with wrapping up their audit process and ensuring their registration of business with the Federal Tax Authority for complying with fresh rules on time.

The businessmen have to register their business whether it is making a profit or loss, whether it’s generated annual revenue more or less than the AED375,000 threshold.

A tax consultant in UAE told Gulf News that business holders still have doubts that the corporate tax registration can wait for their annual profit marked AED375,000.

He termed doubts as the wrong concept and added that the registration process has been continuing since June 2023, and all businesses that got registration from the commencement of the process till the wrap-up process will be eligible to pay tax.

Naqash Ahmed, Managing Director at Dubai-based Capital Plus consultancy said: “If they don’t meet the AED375,000 profit level, eligible taxable persons (i.e., business owners) can elect for the ‘Small Business Relief’ on their tax return.”

Furthermore, he added that once this selection has been made, they will be able to complete a simplified tax Return and benefit from the relief.

The criteria of ‘Small Business Relief’ indicates that the revenue of the business must be below or equal to Dh3 million, if the revenue exceeds from suggested figure the business is no longer able to be classified in the relief policy.

Nevertheless, these businesses still need registration. A week ago, the government held workshops to provide the guidelines for various aspects of the corporate tax which will be 9 per cent of the threshold of AED375,000 of annual income.

Ahmed added that we saw that the companies are using Microsoft Excel for their accounting while we recommend that companies use accounting software which could assist them in finding out their tax range.