FTA holds three youth circles on tax culture to support SMEs

More than 100 representatives of small and medium enterprises participated in the discussions at youth centres in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Ajman.

The sessions were attended by FTA Director-General Khalid Ali Al Bustani; the Federal Youth Authority Director-General, Saeed Al Nazari; the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (ADDED) Under-Secretary, Rashid Al Balooshi, and the Mohammed bin Rashid Establishment for Small and Medium Enterprise Development Executive Vice President, Saeed Al Marri, alongside several federal and local authority officials.

The youth circles, moderated by Eissa Ibrahim Al Raeesi, an FTA Tax Enforcement Specialist, dealt with a set of main themes, including the services provided by the authority, its future directions, enhancing the youth tax culture in the SME sector and the most prominent challenges facing young people at SMEs and their perceptions of facing and overcoming these challenges.

The panels also engaged participants on their innovative ideas, suggestions and opinions for developing and modernising the processes carried out by the authority, to continuously improve services and procedures.

The authority has placed SMEs, which represent a large segment of companies in the UAE that are of strategic importance, amongst its priorities for awareness increase over the past and current years, with a majority of awareness panels focusing on the SME sector.

During the three youth panels, a large number of topics were discussed and clarified, including procedures and documents required for registration and deregistration, procedures for submitting reconsideration requests, requests for voluntary disclosures, and documents required to submit refund requests, and stressing the importance of adhering to the requirements of forms approved by the authority. Also, there were matters related to common errors during registration, filing tax returns and paying tax dues, and explaining how to avoid those mistakes.