MUSCAT: As part of KPMG’s initiative to analyse important tax developments and controversies through a fortnightly series of articles contributed to the Times of Oman; this week, we discuss the requirement of electronic filing of tax returns, which was introduced in Oman’s Income Tax law by a Royal Decree 2017/9 (RD) published in the Official Gazette on February 26.
This initiative, of moving from filing paper returns to electronic returns, is indeed, like several other amendments, a step forward in the Government’s overall commitment toward simplification of tax compliance procedures.However, being a new procedure, taxpayers and their advisors will need to ensure that they are conversant with the process of using the tax portal in order to comply with the amended filing requirements, which are effective immediately from the day following the date of publication of the Royal Decree on February 27.
It is important to note that the tax authority’s electronic portal is operational and taxpayers have started registering themselves for using the portal. The current year being the first year for electronic filing and due to the teething problems and operational issues faced by taxpayers in using the electronic portal, the tax authorities have granted flexibility to the taxpayers for filing the provisional return of income (PRI) for the tax year 2016 (the due date for which was March 31, 2017) either electronically or manually in paper format, to ensure that the filing deadline is not missed due to procedural issues.
However, the tax authorities expect that the Final Return of Income (FRI) for the tax year 2016 (the due date for which is June 30 this year) is filed electronically through the portal by all taxpayers. It remains to be seen whether the portal will be fully operational by then, or whether the tax authorities will give the same flexibility for manual filing of final returns, also giving consideration to the time required by businesses to get fully familiar with the portal.
