The UAE has retained its top global ranking in terms of ease of payment of taxes, thanks to fewer taxes in the country. Analysts are unsure about the impact of the VAT on the country’s ranking, however , hey see the authorities going in the right direction with digital platform and regulations.

Released by World Bank and PriceWaterhouseCoopers on Tuesday, the Paying Taxes 2018 report noted that it takes just 12 hours to file taxes in the UAE as compared to 29 hours in Bahrain, 47 hours in Saudi Arabia, 55 hours in Luxembourg, 63 hours in Switzerland and 64 hours in Singapore. The report comes at a time when the UAE and Saudi Arabia are set to roll out value-added tax (VAT) at five per cent – which is also one of the lowest in the world – from January 2018.

Girish Chand, director, MCA Management Consultants, said that despite the UAE being the latest entrant in the VAT regime, it has adopted simple and logical implementation of VAT.

“This has been done by maintaining a single rate of taxation at five per cent and keeping very limited activities in the zero rated and exempt category. Also the tax return mechanism is very simple where the information required is at summary level. The tax authorities have facilitated an online return filing mechanism making it convenient to file the return,” Chand added.

Read the complete report here.