UAE minister confirms there will be no income tax

UAE Minister of State for Financial Affairs Obaid Humaid Al Tayer said Sunday that his country has no plans to impose a personal income tax on UAE citizens or expatriate workers.

Al-Tayer told reporters on the side-lines of the Second Forum of Public Finances in the Arab Countries in Dubai that the imposition of income tax is “unlikely”.

According to the minister, the UAE however intends to apply selective tax beginning this year according to the agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

Read: 700,000 expat workers lost their jobs in the GCC in 2016

Al Tayer also said that the selective tax law will be issued after the Value Added Tax (VAT), and that it will be approved by the Federal National Council during the second quarter of 2017.

Meanwhile, the minister noted that corporate tax is being discussed to review its economic and social impact if applied in the future.

Dubai has been hosting the Second Forum of Public Finances in the Arab Countries with the participation of Arab finance ministers, governors of central banks and Arab monetary enterprises along with a number of heads, senior officials and experts from regional and international financial institutions.