Value Added Tax

As the world has changed very rapidly over few years not only from business environment, cultural diversity, economic scale but also from technology and tax stand point. Even in Middle East, people have seen changes from no tax regime to tax regime with the introduction of Value Added Tax (‘VAT’) with effect from 1 January 2018 in UAE and in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia followed by Bahrain on 1 January 2019 and Oman on 16 April 2021.

It was beginning of new era in GCC i.e. Gulf Cooperation Countries which consists of 6 countries such as United Arab Emirates, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain. The main reason behind introduction of VAT were to reduce dependence on petroleum and other hydrocarbons and natural gases as a source of revenue.