UAE VAT Registration, Returns, Refunds and Audit Support

Registration is mandatory once taxable supplies pass the mandatory threshold over the previous twelve months or are expected to exceed it in the next thirty days, and voluntary registration is available above the lower threshold. A non-resident making supplies in the UAE registers where no other person is obliged to account for the tax.

Related parties that meet the conditions may register as a tax group and be treated as a single taxable person. Grouping simplifies filing but concentrates liability, so the decision should follow an assessment of the members' recovery positions rather than convenience.

For services the default place of supply is the supplier's place of residence, with exceptions that move it to the recipient, to the location of real property, or to the place of performance. Telecommunications and electronic services follow where they are used and enjoyed.

In the energy sector and on imports, the reverse charge applies: the recipient accounts for the tax on its own return. The supplier's protection depends on written confirmation from the recipient before the date of supply, and a false claim by a recipient is treated as tax evasion.

Recovery requires a valid tax invoice, use of the purchase for taxable supplies, and payment of the consideration as the Regulations require. Zero-rated supplies preserve recovery; exempt supplies remove it, which is why confusing the two is a costly error rather than a labelling one.

Where an error is found in a filed return, a voluntary disclosure corrects it on the FTA's terms and usually on better terms than a correction discovered in an audit. We prepare the disclosure, quantify the exposure and align the accounting records to the corrected position.

An FTA review works from the VAT return back to the ledger and then to the invoices. Our audit support rebuilds the return from the accounting system, prepares the reconciliation for each tax period under review, and answers the sample requests with the source documents already indexed.