- 100 participants attended at youth centres in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Ajman
The Federal Tax Authority (FTA) Youth Council, in cooperation with the Federal Youth Authority (FYA), held three youth circles on Tax Culture to Support Small and Medium Enterprises as part of the Council’s initiatives to raise tax awareness and facilitate tax compliance through direct engagement with youth business.
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 Federal Tax Authority Director General, His Excellency Khalid Ali Al Bustani, Federal Youth Authority Director General, Saeed Al Nazari, Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (ADDED) Undersecretary, Rashid Al Balooshi, and the Mohammed bin Rashid Establishment for Small and Medium Enterprise Development Executive Vice President, Saeed Al Marri, alongside a number of federal and local authority officials.
The youth circles, moderated by Mr 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 the development and modernization of processes carried out by the authority, to continuously improve services and procedures.
Youth engagement is one of the Authority’s most important goals for drawing a more advanced and pioneering future for the UAE tax sector.
His Excellency Khalid Al Bustani said: “The holding of these youth circles came as part of the Authority’s educational and awareness plan, with the aim of supporting UAE youth in the SME sector and enabling them to achieve tax self-compliance smoothly and easily, during which focus was placed on listening to their opinions, suggestions and observations on the procedures and services provided to develop and modernise the Authority’s services”.
He added: “The Authority’s approach of direct engagement with the youth in the business sector by interacting with their opinions and responding to them comes within the framework of the government directives of youth empowerment and activate their role in various sectors, including the economic sector, for the next fifty years, by adopting and supporting the youth’s creative ideas to build the nation’s future, and achieving sustainable growth for the national economy.”
His Excellency emphasised that the FTA aims, through these engagements, to spread tax awareness, help businesses overcome challenges, and provide information, through the specialized teams at the Authority due to the increased number of inquiries from the SME sector.
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 matters related to common errors that occur during registration, filing tax returns and paying tax dues and explaining how to avoid those mistakes
