As businesses inch towards their inaugural year under the UAE’s Corporate Income Tax (CIT) regime, effective since 1 June 2023, those operating on a calendar-year basis are poised to enter the CIT fold come 1 January 2024. In anticipation, there's been a surge in official guidance from UAE authorities, aimed at ensuring that future taxpayers are well-prepared for the new tax regime.
Among those publications are (i) a CIT Guide on Non-Resident Persons, (ii) a CIT Guide on Exempt Income, dealing with Dividends and the Participation Exemption and (iii) a Guide on Transfer Pricing. The last-mentioned Guide is particularly interesting as it entails the UAE’s first set of guidelines on Transfer Pricing. Our team responded to this significant development by hosting a webinar on Wednesday, 8 November 2023, in which our experts unpacked what the Transfer Pricing Guide entails for UAE taxpayers. Please reach out to Nils Vanhassel if you would like to receive a copy of the slides or webinar recording.
In this month’s update, we take a closer look at the recently published Guide that deals with the Participation Exemption. With the Participation Exemption being a known concept in other jurisdictions that have a modern CIT regime, we have primarily analyzed some of the aspects which are particularly noteworthy from a UAE perspective.
Furthermore, we also discuss the Federal Tax Authority's guide on non-resident taxpayer. In our article, we take a closer look at the permanent establishment and nexus concepts and highlight some of the most important clarifications.
Another key topic we tackle is the UAE Ministry of Finance's recent decision outlining the procedure aimed at obtaining tax residency certificates for tax treaty purposes.
In a striking development, Saudi Arabia has propelled itself into the tax spotlight with a proposed overhaul of its current tax regime by announcing a new draft income tax law, zakat law and tax procedures law for public consultation. We provide an in-depth analysis of Saudi's draft Income Tax Law and its implications for both domestic and international businesses.
Internationally, we observe the expanding network of Double Tax Treaties (DTT) among GCC member states, with a special focus on the new Qatar-Egypt treaty and its strategic implications from a tax structuring perspective.
We hope you enjoy this month’s newsletter, and as always, your comments and feedback are highly appreciated.
