Virtuzone allocates over Dhs50m to get businesses tax-ready

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UAE’s Virtuzone is investing more than $13.6m (Dhs50m) in free corporate tax and accounting services to enable 10,000 businesses and entrepreneurs to be corporate tax-compliant by the end of the year.

The company formation and tax consultancy firm said it will provide small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) with free corporate tax registration, free accounting services for three months, and a region-first compliance guarantee new to the UAE.

“Corporate tax started a few months ago but there is a lot of confusion around it in the business community, many clients and businesses come to us asking if it applies to them since they are free zone companies or just small businesses,” said John Casey, Virtuzone Accounting and Tax managing director.

“We will help them comply with ease, get their books in order, and allow them to avoid penalties and fines. As a leading corporate service provider in the UAE, we aim to lead and guide SMEs in navigating this new terrain in the UAE’s constantly evolving business landscape.”

George Hojeige, Virtugroup CEO said as a company whose lifeblood is supporting SMEs in the UAE, Virtuzone remains committed to championing the country’s startup and SME sector.

“By supporting SMEs, we are also supporting the national economy, as SMEs contribute more than 63 per cent to the UAE’s non-oil GDP and account for 94 per cent of the companies operating in the country.”

Virtuzone supports SMEs

Meanwhile, corporate tax started to take effect in the UAE in June and all businesses are now mandated to register for corporate tax, manage their books and keep proper accounting records, and file a corporate tax submission with the Federal Tax Authority.

However, more than 50 per cent of UAE-based companies are still not ready to comply with the new corporate tax rules, with many adamantly believing the rules do not apply to them while they do.

“To help facilitate the smooth implementation of corporate tax and ease the transition for SMEs, Virtuzone has taken this historic initiative to support the local business sector, help boost the nation’s economy and work alongside the government in making the country an even more attractive hub for foreign direct investment,” said Neil Petch, Virtugroup chairman and founder.

The company unveiled TaxGPT, the “world’s first” artificial intelligence-powered corporate tax assistant programmed to help UAE-based businesses navigate their way through the new processes and regulations associated with corporate.

Built on the AI model of Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4 (GPT-4), an advanced language model developed by OpenAI, TaxGPT is trained to offer instant, specific and complete answers to questions related to the new corporate tax legislation, based on online publications released by the UAE’s Ministry of Finance and the Federal Tax Authority.

Read: Introducing TaxGPT, the AI-powered UAE corporate tax assistant