Page 23 - Focus Group

Voluntary Disclosure

for VAT- “Nothing

Voluntary about it”

CA Malvika K Nanjappa

For a layman, the words voluntary disclosure or Tax refund application in
strikes out to mean something which is disclosed
willingly. So this means one should be allowed to accordance with the provisions
decide whether to disclose the matter in question of the Tax Law.”
or not, right? Wrong, think again before falling for
the literal meaning. The crux of the above definition is that, an
opportunity is given to the Taxable Person to
The UAE Federal Decree Law No. 7 of 2017 defines correct errors or omissions made but this comes
Voluntary Disclosure as at a cost to the Taxable Person in the form of fixed

“A form prepared by the and/ or percentage-based penalties. The penalties
are to penalize the Taxable Person for errors made
Authority pursuant to which the at his end in the first place. If you are thinking of

Taxpayer notifies the Authority skipping the correction anyway, there is always a
dead end, either in the form of a penalty or by way
of an error or omission in the of cost for making such errors.

Tax Return, Tax Assessment Below an attempt has been made to decipher the
“….in accordance with the provisions of the Tax

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (Dubai) Chapter NPIO TAX JOURNAL 2020 23