Everything You Need to Know about VAT Refund in the UAE

Every VAT registered business needs to file their VAT return within the said time. You will also find the VAT refund form on the online portal where one can claim any extra VAT paid. Businesses are required to gather the VAT from the consumers for the government. Along with this, they also have to pay the VAT to their suppliers upon any purchase. In the VAT return form, this input and output VAT are calculated.  A taxable person can only claim for a refund if the paid VAT is more than the collected one. To do this calculation more accurately, the assistance of an expert tax agent Dubai is highly recommended.

There are also some conditions fulfilling which one can claim a refund:

·         Type of the service or product- Apart from the standard rated taxable goods, VAT refund can be claimed even on the zero-rated service and products. But, if the goods are exempted from the VAT, no refund can be requested for that.

·         VAT registration- In order to claim for a refund, the business must be a VAT registered company. Otherwise, it cannot make a request for a refund.

·         Eligibility period- Following the supply date, if the payable or paid amount passes six months, any refund claim will not be considered as eligible.   

·         Rational charging of VAT- The company must collect the VAT in a reasonable way. There will be no refund if the VAT is charged wrongly on the services and products.

·         VAT invoice- Businesses need to show VAT invoices that have been properly created to claim a VAT refund.  

The process of claiming VAT refund

While filing your VAT return, you will get an option to request for a refund if your paid VAT amount is more than the received VAT. There, you will have to choose the ‘Yes’ box to claim your refund. After the submission of the VAT return form, you will have to finish the application form for VAT refund, ‘Form VAT311’.

You need to log in to the portal of FTA and then, go to the refund form. Here, you will have to fill in all the details. The fields which you will find in the VAT refund form are as follows:

·         Name and TRN of the organisation or taxable person- You will not have to fill up this field as it will be automatically filled up.

·         Excess Refundable Tax- This is another automated field which will contain the total amount of the refundable tax which is extra. This will be according to the reported amount in the last filed VAT return.

·         The refund amount you want to get- In this field, you will have to input the amount of the VAT that you wish to get back.

·         The outstanding excess refundable tax amount which is eligible- This field will again be automatically filled and show the remaining refundable amount.

·         The penalty for late registration- This area will contain the details of any late registration penalty that you might have.

Now you have a good amount of knowledge regarding the VAT refund. Thus, you can claim for the same very easily the next time you do this.