Now VAT has been started in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to boost the non-oil income. Businesses are charging 5% VAT on their products and services but some products and services are exempted that includes public healthcare, exports, international transportation, residential rent etc. VAT implemented in GCC countries is extremely low as compared to other countries and the step taken by GCC will boost the revenue for the Kingdom and generate approximately SAR 23 billion in 2018.

VAT is an efficient and transparent way for managements to raise revenue – the International Monetary Fund forecasts that GCC countries can increase GDP by 2.5 per cent with the implementation of VAT. This will help GCC countries to diversify their economies away from oil and to continue delivering on their public facility mandates.

Now businesses are being penalized if they haven’t implemented VAT in their products or services and penalties may include 10,000 Riyals to 100,000 Riyals or some percentage of the tax due.

The General Authority for Zakat and Tax has published Saudi VAT application for both Android and iOS devices that includes tax-related services, value-added tax calculation system and checking the VAT registered entities using CR and QR code scanner and to report VAT violations system.

Many businesses in the Kingdom are VAT registered businesses and using accounting softwares to manage their tax invoices. Accounting software saves their time and human resource cost and it is extremely easy to print VAT ready receipts for their customers as they just have to set the VAT rate and everything is done.

SMACC is the Middle-East’s biggest accounting software and has signed up an MoU with GZAT (General Authority for Zakat and Tax) as VAT solution provider in the Kingdom. SMACC is 100% VAT ready accounting software for all GCC and other 160 countries of the world. Tax can be setup in SMACC with following features:

  • Item wise VAT
  • Global Tax
  • Tax by percentage
  • Tax by fixed amount
  • Tax before discount
  • Tax after discount
  • Tax in sales price

If you aren’t a VAT compliant then it is very good time to invest in a best accounting software that will streamline all your VAT collections, invoices, records, payments etc. So take a smart step towards becoming a VAT compliant business.