The General Authority of Zakat and Tax (GAZT) has commended its awareness campaigns to involve the public in the elimination of the tax violations in the markets as yielding a high level of interaction from the taxpayers and consumers alike in the Kingdom, according to the number of reports incoming to the Authority in the last four months.
GAZT announced that it had received 12,424 reports within four months on tax violations such as tax evasion, collection of a value-added tax more or less than 15%, collection by unregistered person, non-issuance or non-maintenance of tax invoices, non-maintenance of the registers and tax invoices or absence of the tax number on invoices among other violations. GAZT's Zakat and Tax Investigations Department received 3,776 reports last September, 3,150 reports in October, 2,910 in November, and 2,558 in December.
The Authority also announced that the awareness campaigns on tax practices and reporting channels of tax violations, resulted in remarkable taxpayer education to avoid violating tax practices. It also helped consumers become aware of the possibility of reporting tax violations to GAZT. Such awareness was reflected in the gradual decrease in the number of reports over the last four months.
GAZT also announced that it had paid incentive rewards for 529 whistleblowers from September to date, after it verified the reliability of the reports it received. The Authority stated that the most common violation was the absence of the tax number on the invoice, which was reported by 128 consumers. Second came the non-collection of VAT by 82 reporters and collection of tax less than the basic rate by 75 reporters.
This comes after the Authority began to apply the regulation of the promotional rewards to the notifying persons on February of the last year.
The Authority had earlier urged all consumers to lodge their reports against any establishment that does not comply with the tax laws and offered them incentive rewards for filing reports on tax violations; rewards amount to 2.5% of the value of violations and fines, at a maximum of 1 million riyals or a minimum of 1000 riyals. The incentives aims to protect the public funds through supporting tax compliance, eliminate tax violations and encourage the commitment of the facilities to their legal liabilities.
Awareness messages sent to consumers on tax violations and reporting channels via the different social media platforms have achieved a record rate of traffic at 12.3 million visits in the same period. Several promotional hashtags (# your notification – concern us), (don't hesitate- and notify) and (# Zakat – Tax) were used.
The Authority stressed that the consumers reports on violations of the Saudi tax laws are addressed promptly and confidentially by the concerned departments. It also urges consumers who witness tax violations to notify the Authority through the VAT app, or the Authority's website (gazt.gov.sa).
