How you respond in the hours after receiving an FTA audit notice in Dubai matters more than most businesses realise. This is a practical, hour-by-hour guide — what the notice means, what records to pull, how to run an internal compliance check, and how to submit a response that protects your position.

Receiving a notice from the Federal Tax Authority tends to land differently than most business correspondence. Even if you have been diligent about your VAT filings and corporate tax compliance, that official notification carries a weight that makes most business owners stop and re-read it two or three times.

The reaction is understandable. What matters more is what you do in the hours that follow.

At Risians Accounting & Tax Consultancy, we have guided dozens of UAE businesses through FTA audit processes. The pattern we see consistently is that the initial reaction — panic, delay, or an uncoordinated submission — almost always makes things harder. With the right steps taken quickly, most businesses come through without significant penalty or disruption.

The outcome of an FTA audit is shaped less by whether your records are perfect and more by how quickly and coherently you respond. Businesses that respond in a structured way — with organised documents and a clear understanding of what the FTA is actually asking for — come through in far better shape than those who panic, submit everything at once, or delay.

FTA audit activity has increased significantly in recent years. The authority now holds full digital records of VAT returns, corporate tax registrations, EmaraTax portal activity, and customs data. Auditors can cross-reference what you reported against what third-party data implies — which means the FTA often already has a picture of your position before you submit a single document.

That context matters. Responding clearly, accurately, and on time is not just a procedural requirement. It is how you demonstrate that your business operates in compliance and that any gaps in your records are explained rather than hidden.

This is a step-by-step guide to those first 48 hours.

What Type of FTA Audit Notice Have You Received?

Not all FTA notices mean the same thing. Treating them all as a crisis is as unhelpful as ignoring them. The first thing to do is read the notice carefully and identify what the FTA is actually asking.

There are four main types of communication you might receive, and they require meaningfully different responses.

An Information Request

This is the most common and least alarming type. The FTA is asking you to provide specific documents — VAT returns, invoices, accounting records — for a defined period. It does not mean you are under investigation, and it does not mean anything has been found to be wrong.

Information requests are often part of routine compliance monitoring. The FTA selects businesses across industries, sizes, and registration ages to check that records match what has been filed. Many businesses that receive an information request and respond with well-organised, complete documentation never hear from the FTA again on the same matter.

That said, an information request should not be treated casually. The documents you submit may prompt further questions if they reveal inconsistencies. Treat the response with the same care you would a formal audit.

A VAT Audit Notification

This is a formal notice that your VAT records are being audited under UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 8 of 2017. UAE VAT law requires the FTA to give businesses advance notice before conducting a field audit, except where there is evidence or reasonable suspicion of tax evasion or fraud.

In practice, the advance notice period is typically stated in the audit notification itself — usually a minimum of five business days, sometimes ten or fifteen depending on business complexity. Use every day of that window.

A VAT audit can be conducted on-site at your business premises, remotely via document submission, or a combination of both. The auditor will typically be assigned from a specific FTA department and may request a meeting with your finance team or accountant.

A Corporate Tax Audit Notice

UAE corporate tax took effect for financial years starting on or after 1 June 2023 under Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022. Many businesses are now experiencing their first corporate tax compliance review in 2025 and 2026.

A corporate tax audit notice relates to your corporate tax registration, tax return filing, taxable income calculations, or your claimed tax treatment — including whether you are correctly applying the 9% standard rate, the 0% small business relief, or the qualifying free zone person exemption.

Corporate tax audits tend to be more complex than VAT audits because the underlying calculations involve accounting judgement, depreciation methodologies, intercompany transactions, and — for free zone companies — the detailed qualifying income and activities rules. If you receive one of these, professional involvement from the outset is strongly advisable.

An Assessment or Penalty Notice

This is the most serious type of FTA communication. It means the authority has already completed a review and is issuing a formal determination — either a tax assessment quantifying an additional tax liability, a penalty notice specifying an administrative fine, or both.

Assessment and penalty notices carry hard deadlines. For a tax assessment, you have 40 business days from the date of the notice to file a formal objection if you disagree with it. For penalty reconsideration, separate timelines apply. Missing either deadline removes your right to contest, and the assessment or penalty becomes final.

If what you have received is an assessment or penalty notice rather than a preliminary audit notification, do not wait — the timeline is already running.

Hours 0–4: What to Do First After Receiving an FTA Audit Notice in Dubai

The instinct in the first few hours is to act quickly. That is the right instinct — but the action should be understanding, not responding.

Log Into EmaraTax Immediately

FTA notices are formally delivered through the EmaraTax portal at eservices.tax.gov.ae. The response clock starts from the date of delivery on the portal, not from when you happen to read it. A notice delivered on Monday and not read until Thursday has already consumed three days of your response window.

This is not a hypothetical risk. Many businesses — particularly smaller companies where the EmaraTax login is managed by one person — discover that notices have been sitting in the portal for days. Make sure at least two people in your organisation have portal access and know to check it regularly.

Download and Document the Notice

Save a PDF copy of the full notice immediately. Do not rely solely on portal access — portals can be updated, notices can be superseded, and having a dated copy in your own records matters.

Note the following from the notice:

• The notice reference number — you will need this in every subsequent piece of correspondence
• The specific tax type (VAT, corporate tax, excise, or a combination)
• The exact period under review — usually stated as a date range or series of tax periods
• The deadline for your response, including the specific date and time if stated
• The name and contact information of the assigned FTA officer if listed

Do Not Submit Anything Yet

This is the single most important instruction in the first few hours, and it is the one businesses most often ignore.

The reflex to respond immediately — to upload tax returns, invoices, and bank statements as quickly as possible — comes from a reasonable place. It feels like cooperation. But it can actively harm your position.

Every document you submit to the FTA becomes part of the official audit record. If those documents contain errors — even minor ones, like a VAT return figure that does not match your trial balance — the auditor will note them. Submitting unreviewed, disorganised records also signals that your business does not maintain its records well, which can broaden the scope of the audit.

The right sequence is: understand the notice, review records internally, identify any issues, address what can be addressed, then submit. That process takes more than four hours.

Contact Your Accountant

Loop in your external accounting and bookkeeping provider or in-house finance function the moment you have read and documented the notice. They need to know the specific period covered and the documents requested. If you have been managing compliance yourself without a dedicated professional, this is the moment to assess whether external support is needed. At Risians Accounting & Tax Consultancy, we regularly take over this process at short notice — if you are unsure where to start, reach out before you do anything else. The scope of what needs to happen in the next 48 hours is significant.

Hours 4–12: Identifying the Scope of Your FTA Audit Notice

Once you know what type of notice you have received, understand exactly what the FTA is asking for — not roughly, but precisely — and then find it.

FTA audits are always period-specific. The notice will name a financial year, a quarter, or a series of VAT return periods. Before you pull a single file, read the period definition two or three times. A VAT audit covering Q1 2024 (January to March) is different from one covering the VAT return period ending 31 March 2024, and in some cases the FTA’s stated period and your VAT return period will not align exactly — particularly if you are on a quarterly return cycle that does not start on 1 January.

For a VAT Audit

The documents most commonly requested include:

• VAT return submissions for every tax period within the audit scope, together with EmaraTax submission confirmations. If you amended any returns during the period, include both the original and amended versions.
• Output VAT records — every tax invoice issued during the period, organised and accessible. If your invoicing system allows export by date range, do this now and check the total against your VAT return output VAT figure.
• Input VAT records — every purchase invoice on which you claimed input VAT, along with supplier statements and any supporting approval documentation for significant expenses.
• Bank statements for all business accounts covering the audit period. The FTA reconciles VAT return figures against bank receipts and payments as a basic cross-check.
• Import and export documentation. If your business imports goods, reverse charge VAT applies on most imports and the FTA will want to see it was correctly accounted for. Export documentation is relevant if you claimed zero-rating on any supplies.
• Contracts and agreements for large or recurring transactions — particularly those involving non-standard VAT treatment such as exempt supplies, zero-rated exports, or mixed supplies.
• VAT refund applications filed during the period, with all supporting documentation for those claims.

For a Corporate Tax Audit

• Corporate tax registration confirmation from EmaraTax, showing your Tax Registration Number and effective registration date. If there was any gap between when your business became liable to register and when it registered, that will be part of what the FTA reviews.
• The complete corporate tax return as filed for the relevant financial year, including all schedules and annexures. If you filed an amended return, include both versions.
• Audited financial statements for the tax period. The FTA will cross-reference your corporate tax return figures against the audited accounts — discrepancies between the two are a common trigger for deeper scrutiny.
• Accounting records: general ledger, trial balance, detailed profit and loss account for the period, and fixed asset register if depreciation is material.
• Transfer pricing documentation if your business transacts with related parties. Under UAE corporate tax law, businesses with related party transactions above certain thresholds have formal transfer pricing documentation obligations, and the FTA verifies arm’s length pricing.
• Qualifying income evidence for free zone companies. If you claimed qualifying free zone person status and the 0% corporate tax rate, the FTA will want to see evidence that your income meets the qualifying income definition, your activities fall within the qualifying activities list, and you meet the substance requirements.

A Note on Scope Creep

FTA audits do not always stay within the period stated in the original notice. If an auditor reviewing your Q1 2024 VAT records identifies something that raises questions about earlier periods, the scope of the audit can be extended. This is more likely when an initial review reveals inconsistencies.

This is another reason why the internal compliance check in the next phase is so important. If there are issues in adjacent periods you are aware of, it is better to address them proactively through a voluntary disclosure than to have them surface as the audit broadens.

Hours 12–24: Internal Compliance Check Before Responding to the FTA

This is the step that most businesses skip in their rush to respond, and it is often where the outcome of the audit is determined.

Before you submit anything, you need to know whether what you are about to submit holds up. FTA audits regularly find issues not because businesses were concealing anything, but because internal records contain errors or gaps that nobody had reason to look at closely until now. Finding those issues yourself — before the FTA does — puts you in a fundamentally different position.

VAT Return Reconciliation

The most basic check is also the most important: do your VAT return figures match your accounting records?

Take the output VAT figure from each return in the audit period. Multiply the taxable turnover your accounting system shows for those months by the applicable VAT rate. Do the numbers agree? If not, there is a discrepancy that needs an explanation before you submit anything.

Common reasons for a legitimate discrepancy include timing differences (invoices issued in one period but revenue recognised in another), mixed supplies with different VAT rates, or transactions that are correctly exempt or zero-rated. Any of these can be explained with documentation. A discrepancy with no explanation is a problem.

Do the same check on input VAT. Total the input VAT claimed across the audit period from your returns. Then total the input VAT on the purchase invoices you have compiled. If those two numbers are materially different, find out why before the FTA does.

Invoice Compliance Review

Under UAE VAT legislation, a valid tax invoice must contain a specific set of fields. Missing any of them makes the invoice technically non-compliant, which can affect both your customers’ input VAT claims and your own compliance position.

A valid UAE tax invoice must include:

• The words “Tax Invoice” clearly stated on the document
• Your business name and address
• Your Tax Registration Number (TRN)
• The invoice date and a unique sequential invoice number
• The customer’s name, address, and TRN if the supply is to a VAT-registered business
• A description of the goods or services supplied
• The quantity and unit price where applicable
• The taxable amount for each line item and any applicable discount
• The VAT rate applied to each line
• The total VAT charged
• The total amount payable including VAT

Pull a sample of invoices from the audit period — 20 to 30 across different customers and transaction types — and check them against this list. If you find consistent gaps, you need to understand how widespread the issue is before submitting.

For simplified tax invoices — applicable to B2C transactions under AED 10,000 — the requirements are lighter, but they still need to show the supplier’s name, TRN, date, a description of goods or services, and the total including VAT.

Input VAT Eligibility Check

Not all VAT paid on purchases is reclaimable under UAE law. The following categories are blocked — meaning you cannot reclaim them regardless of whether you hold a valid tax invoice:

• Entertainment expenses. VAT on costs related to entertaining clients, customers, or non-employees — hospitality, events, meals where the primary purpose is entertainment — is not reclaimable.
• Motor vehicles for personal use. Input VAT on cars is blocked unless the vehicle is used exclusively for a taxable business purpose. For most businesses, a director’s or employee’s car is not an eligible claim.
• Purchases for mixed business and personal use. Where goods or services are used partly for business and partly personally, only the business-use portion of input VAT is reclaimable. Mixed-use assets require an apportionment.

Also check that suppliers from whom you claimed input VAT were actually VAT registered at the time of the supply. The FTA maintains the public TRN verification register on the EmaraTax portal. If a supplier was not registered, their invoice was not a valid tax invoice regardless of whether it showed a TRN number, and any input VAT claimed on it is incorrectly claimed.

Corporate Tax-Specific Checks

For businesses facing a corporate tax audit, the key review areas are:

• Disallowed expenditure. UAE corporate tax law specifies categories that cannot be deducted in calculating taxable income: entertainment expenses (50% of qualifying entertainment expenditure is disallowed), personal expenditure, penalties and fines paid to government authorities, and dividends or profit distributions. Verify that your return correctly excluded these items.
• Depreciation methodology. The law permits depreciation of fixed assets, but requires it to be calculated consistently in accordance with the accounting standards used in your financial statements. Check that your fixed asset schedule is consistent with your audited accounts.
• Related party transactions. Payments to related parties — management fees, service charges, loan interest, royalties — must be at arm’s length. Significant related party payments should be documented and the pricing should be justifiable.
• Free zone qualifying income. If you are a free zone company claiming the 0% corporate tax rate, qualifying income broadly includes income from transactions with other free zone persons and from qualifying activities. Income from mainland UAE customers, certain passive income, or income from excluded activities does not qualify and is taxable at 9%. Review your income breakdown carefully.

On voluntary disclosures

If your internal compliance check reveals an error — an underpaid VAT amount, an overclaimed input VAT, an incorrectly calculated corporate tax liability — you have an important option: a voluntary disclosure.

A voluntary disclosure filed before the FTA raises the same issue results in substantially lower penalties than the same error being identified during or after an audit. The administrative penalty for a tax return error corrected through voluntary disclosure is typically between 1% and 4% of the unpaid tax per month. The same error identified by the FTA during an audit attracts a penalty of 50% of the unpaid tax on the first occurrence, rising to 100% on subsequent occurrences.

Filing a voluntary disclosure is not an admission of guilt and does not automatically trigger a broader audit. Businesses that self-correct are treated differently from those who wait to be caught. If your review surfaces anything that looks like an error, raise it with your tax advisor before submitting your main audit response.

Hours 24–36: Should You Appoint a Tax Agent for Your FTA Audit?

Whether to appoint a registered tax agent to handle your FTA audit response is a genuine decision, not a formality.

You are not legally required to do so. If your notice is a straightforward information request, the audit period is short, your accounting records are clean and well-maintained, and your internal review found no issues — there is a reasonable case for responding yourself, particularly if you have a capable in-house finance function or accountant.

In most other situations, professional representation changes the audit experience materially. Risians Accounting & Tax Consultancy provides registered tax agent services across Dubai and the wider UAE — many clients come to us specifically at the point of receiving a notice, and in most cases we are able to take over the process and manage it from end to end.

What a Registered Tax Agent Actually Does

A registered tax agent in Dubai brings three things that are difficult to replicate internally:

• Procedural knowledge. FTA auditors have specific expectations about how responses are structured, how documents are labelled, and how discrepancies are explained. A well-organised submission that addresses each point in the notice in order — with a covering analysis, not just raw documents — is received very differently from a bundle of files uploaded without context.
• Audit risk assessment. Before submitting anything, a good tax agent reviews your records from the FTA’s perspective — looking for the same things auditors look for, and identifying issues you might not have spotted internally. This is distinct from your internal check: your check is about finding problems. The agent’s review is about understanding how those problems will look to an auditor.
• Direct FTA communication. Once appointed, a registered tax agent becomes your authorised representative. They correspond with the FTA, attend any in-person meetings, and respond to follow-up requests on your behalf. This ensures responses are professionally managed rather than reactive, and removes the business owner from a process that can be stressful and time-consuming.

The Practical Considerations

If your books are maintained by an outsourced bookkeeping or monthly accounting service, contact them immediately regardless of whether you appoint a tax agent. They hold your records and can compile required documentation far faster than you can do it yourself.

If you are a free zone company facing a corporate tax audit and you claimed the qualifying free zone person 0% rate — particularly if this is your first corporate tax return — professional involvement is strongly advisable. The qualifying income rules are complex, the documentation requirements are specific, and FTA scrutiny of free zone company tax treatment has been increasing in 2025 and 2026.

In cases where your internal review revealed any potential issues, professional representation is not optional in any practical sense. Navigating the boundary between a voluntary disclosure and an audit response — and making sure those two things are coordinated correctly — requires experience with how the FTA actually processes both.

Hours 36–48: How to Submit Your FTA Audit Response in Dubai

With documents compiled, your internal review complete, and your representation decision made, it is time to prepare the response itself.

Organisation Before Upload

The FTA does not only evaluate the content of what you submit. They evaluate how you submit it.

A clearly organised response — documents grouped by category, labelled consistently, with a date range on each file — signals that your business maintains systematic records. A submission consisting of dozens of unlabelled PDF files in no particular order signals the opposite, and it will take the auditor significantly longer to process, increasing the chance of follow-up requests.

The minimum level of organisation you should aim for:

• Separate folders or clearly labelled file prefixes for each document category — for example: VAT Returns, Purchase Invoices, Sales Invoices, Bank Statements, Contracts
• Each file named with the period it covers: VAT-Return-Q1-2024.pdf, Bank-Statement-Jan-2024.pdf, and so on
• An index document listing every file submitted, its contents, and the period it covers. This takes 30 minutes to prepare and is often the first thing an auditor looks at.

The Covering Letter

Do not submit documents without a covering letter. It does not need to be long — two or three paragraphs is sufficient in most cases — but it should:

• Reference the notice number and confirm the audit period you are responding to
• State clearly what documents you are enclosing
• Note any limitations — if certain records are being submitted separately due to portal file size limits, or if specific documents are unavailable and why
• Note if you have filed or are simultaneously filing a voluntary disclosure in relation to a matter identified during your internal review

A covering letter that directly addresses the notice and explains the submission demonstrates that your response is considered and coordinated. It also reduces the chance of follow-up questions that were already answered in the documents you submitted.

Submitting Through EmaraTax

All formal responses to FTA audit notices should be submitted through the EmaraTax portal. The portal has file size limits per upload, and for complex audits with large numbers of invoices, you may need to compress files, split submissions across multiple uploads, or request an alternative submission method such as a shared drive or physical delivery.

If you cannot submit everything through the portal in one go, address this explicitly in your covering letter and confirm what will follow and by when.

Requesting an Extension

If 48 hours is not enough time to compile complete, accurate, well-organised records — and for businesses with complex operations, significant transaction volumes, or any backlog in bookkeeping, it realistically may not be — you can formally request additional time.

Extension requests should be submitted through EmaraTax before your current deadline expires. Include:

• A specific reason for needing additional time — not just “we need more time”
• A proposed alternative deadline that is realistic and achievable
• Confirmation that you are actively compiling the requested documents

The FTA does not always grant extensions and there is no guaranteed right to one. But a formal, reasoned, timely request is always better than a missed deadline. A missed deadline without explanation can attract additional penalties and signals disengagement.

What Happens After You Respond to an FTA Audit Notice?

Understanding what comes next helps reduce the uncertainty that makes FTA audits stressful.

Clean Audit

In cases where your records are complete, your returns are consistent with your accounting, and your response directly addresses what was asked — the audit closes with a confirmation letter. For businesses that maintain current, accurate bookkeeping and file correct returns, this is the most common outcome.

Follow-Up Requests

If the FTA’s review identifies questions or wants clarification — a figure in your VAT return that does not match invoice totals, or a deduction in your corporate tax return that needs further documentation — they will issue a follow-up notice. A follow-up request is not an escalation. It is a normal part of the audit process. Respond with the same level of care and organisation as the original notice, and respond promptly.

Tax Assessment

If the FTA concludes that tax was underpaid, a refund was overclaimed, or returns were filed incorrectly, they issue a tax assessment specifying the additional liability and any associated penalty. You have 40 business days from the assessment date to file a formal objection. If you believe the assessment is incorrect, exercise that right — supported by your VAT audit support or corporate tax audit support advisors, because the objection process is formal and has its own procedural requirements.

If the FTA’s objection review upholds the assessment and you still disagree, there is a further appeal route through the Tax Disputes Resolution Committee (TDRC). This process involves a structured hearing. If you reach this stage, legal representation alongside tax advisory support is advisable.

Why FTA Audit Notices in Dubai Lead to Penalties: Common Patterns

The audit outcomes that result in significant penalties are rarely about businesses that set out to misrepresent anything. They tend to come from a small number of recurring patterns.

Incomplete Records Without Explanation

Submitting partial documentation and hoping the auditor does not notice is not a viable strategy. If you cannot produce a document that was requested — perhaps because records from a prior accounting system were lost, or a backlog in bookkeeping means records for certain months were never reconciled — explain this clearly in your covering letter with as much specificity as possible.

A gap in records that is acknowledged and explained is treated differently from one that is simply absent. The FTA expects transparency, not perfection.

Figures That Do Not Reconcile

This is the most common technical issue that turns a routine information request into a more extended audit. VAT return output tax figures that cannot be traced back to your sales ledger, input VAT claims that exceed the total on your purchase invoices, or a corporate tax return profit figure that differs from your audited accounts will always attract attention.

In some cases these discrepancies have legitimate explanations — timing differences, accounting adjustments, the effect of applying an accruals-basis accounting policy to a cash-basis VAT return. But the explanation needs to be provided. An auditor who finds a discrepancy and does not receive an explanation will investigate further.

Late Registration

The FTA checks whether businesses were registered at the right time — for both VAT and corporate tax. Under UAE VAT law, registration is mandatory within 30 days of exceeding the AED 375,000 mandatory registration threshold. Under UAE corporate tax law, all businesses were required to register within timelines set by the FTA based on their licence issue month.

If your business was trading before it registered — even by a short period — the FTA can assess VAT on the supplies made during the unregistered period, and the penalty for late VAT registration is AED 10,000 for the first instance. This is a fixed penalty, not percentage-based, and it applies regardless of whether you eventually registered voluntarily.

If you know there was a delay in your registration, acknowledge it in your response. It is better to explain it than to hope it goes unnoticed.

Inadequate Record Retention

UAE tax law requires businesses to retain financial records and tax documents for a minimum of five years from the end of the relevant tax period. For certain categories — records related to real property transactions, or records relating to losses carried forward — the retention period can be longer.

If the FTA requests records from 2020 or 2021 and you cannot produce them, you face penalties for non-retention regardless of whether those records would have shown any compliance issue. The obligation to retain records is separate from the obligation to comply — you can be penalised for not having records even if, had you had them, they would have shown complete compliance.

Input VAT Claimed on Non-Qualifying Expenses

We return to this because it is consistently one of the most common findings in FTA VAT audits. Input VAT claimed on entertainment, blocked vehicle costs, or supplier invoices from unregistered businesses creates an automatic liability — the overclaimed VAT is payable back to the FTA, plus interest, plus a penalty if the FTA identifies it rather than the business self-correcting.

The fix is straightforward: review input VAT claims carefully before filing returns, and check supplier TRN status through the FTA’s public TRN verification tool before claiming input VAT from a new supplier.

How to Reduce Your FTA Audit Risk in Dubai Going Forward

The most effective FTA audit strategy is not a response strategy — it is a maintenance strategy. Businesses that are rarely troubled by FTA audits are not businesses with better advisors or more accommodating auditors. They are businesses that maintain clean, current, reconciled accounting records and file accurate returns consistently.

This sounds obvious. In practice, it requires discipline — particularly for growing businesses that prioritise operations over finance administration. The accounting backlogs, unreconciled bank accounts, and disorganised invoices that seem manageable during a busy quarter become serious problems the moment an FTA notice arrives.

Monthly Bookkeeping and Reconciliation

The foundation is current bookkeeping — all transactions recorded, all bank accounts reconciled, all income and expenditure coded correctly every month. When books are current, preparing for an FTA information request takes hours rather than weeks.

Businesses that use outsourced monthly bookkeeping services — rather than asking their accountant to reconstruct a year’s worth of transactions in the weeks before an audit — are in a fundamentally better position. The records exist, they are reconciled, and they can be produced quickly.

Pre-Submission VAT Return Review

Before filing each VAT return, run a basic reconciliation: does the output VAT figure agree with your revenue for the period, adjusted for any exempt or zero-rated supplies? Does the input VAT figure agree with your purchase invoices, after excluding blocked categories? If there are variances, find and explain them before the return is filed.

This takes 30 to 60 minutes per return period and prevents the kind of unexplained discrepancies that attract audit attention.

Corporate Tax Readiness Assessment

For businesses filing corporate tax returns for the first time — and many UAE businesses are still working through their first full corporate tax cycle — a tax compliance review before filing is valuable. This involves reviewing your accounting records and return calculations from the perspective of FTA scrutiny: are the correct items excluded from deductions, is depreciation consistent with financial statements, are related party transactions documented and priced correctly, and — for free zone companies — is your qualifying income determination defensible?

An issue identified during a pre-filing review is correctable at minimal cost. The same issue identified by the FTA after filing attracts a penalty.

The Short Version

• Hours 0–4: Log into EmaraTax. Download the notice. Note the deadline and the notice reference number. Do not submit anything yet. Contact your accountant.
• Hours 4–12: Identify the audit type and the exact period covered. Pull all records within that scope — VAT returns, invoices, bank statements, or corporate tax documents depending on the notice type.
• Hours 12–24: Run an internal compliance check. Look for VAT return mismatches against accounting records, invoice compliance gaps, blocked input VAT claims, and corporate tax disallowed expense or qualifying income issues. If you find a problem, consider a voluntary disclosure before submitting.
• Hours 24–36: Decide on professional representation. For complex audits, first-time corporate tax reviews, or any situation where your internal review found issues, appoint a registered tax agent.
• Hours 36–48: Organise, label, and index your documents before uploading. Write a covering letter. Submit through EmaraTax. Request an extension formally if you need more time — before the deadline, not after.

If you have received an FTA notice and want a second opinion on how to respond, contact Risians Accounting & Tax Consultancy or get in touch — we offer a free initial consultation and can usually give you a clear picture of your position quickly.