Filing the Oman VAT return: the periods, what goes in each box, the deadline and the penalties

The period and the deadline

A VAT tax period in Oman is three months. The return is filed on the Tax Authority's portal within 30 days of the end of each period, and the VAT it shows is payable by the same date. Check the dates of your own periods in your account on the portal.

If no return is filed, the Tax Authority may assess the tax for the period itself and notify you of the assessment, on top of any penalty.

What goes in each box

The return is a self-assessment: you report the figures and the portal works out the VAT on them. The Tax Authority's filing guide sets out the boxes:

• Box 1(a): supplies in Oman at 5%, including deemed supplies, at their value before VAT.
• Box 1(b): zero-rated supplies in Oman, not exports. Box 1(c): exempt supplies. Out-of-scope supplies stay off the return.
• Box 1(f): supplies under the profit margin scheme.
• Box 2(b): purchases from outside the GCC taxed under the reverse charge, at their value before VAT.
• Box 3(a): zero-rated exports of goods and services.
• Box 4(a): imports of goods with the VAT postponed to the return. Box 4(b): all other imports, including exempt and zero-rated goods and those where VAT was paid at customs.
• Box 5: the total VAT due (5a) and adjustments to it (5b), such as bad debts on standard-rated supplies and returned goods.
• Box 6: the input VAT you may deduct. 6(a) covers purchases in Oman after any apportionment, without imports and without capital assets, which are reported apart; 6(b) covers imports.

When input VAT is more than output VAT

The difference can be refunded or carried forward to later periods. A refund is asked for in the return itself, by ticking the refund box before the deadline, and only when the amount is above OMR 100. Otherwise it is carried forward and set against VAT due in a later period.

Correcting a return you have filed

If you find an error in a return already filed, submit a revised return within 30 days of finding it; the revised return is treated as the original. A return cannot be revised more than three years after it was filed, or once the Tax Authority has started an inspection, review or audit.

Penalties for filing and paying late

A quarter's VAT of OMR 3,200.000 paid 40 days after the deadline counts as two months, one full and one part:

• Late payment: additional tax of 1% of the unpaid VAT for each month or part of a month of delay, until it is paid.
• Fines: the Tax Authority can impose administrative fines of OMR 500 to OMR 10,000 depending on the offence, and a penalty of 1% to 25% of tax wrongly declared on a return.
• Tax evasion is an offence under the VAT Law, punished with a fine of OMR 1,000 to OMR 20,000 and imprisonment of two months to three years, doubled for a repeat offence.

How Aqid ERP helps

Aqid ERP lays out the Tax Authority's return box by box from your ledger as you work: supplies at 5%, zero-rated and exempt, exports, the reverse charge on services from abroad, imports with VAT deferred to the return, and your adjustments. Open any box to see the invoices and bills behind it. Every amount is kept in baisa, to three decimals.

It is a working paper. Aqid ERP does not file to the Tax Authority's portal for you, and the layout has not yet been checked against the portal with a live filing, so you enter the figures there yourself. Fixed-asset purchases land in box 6(a) with other purchases; move them to box 6(c) when you file. Once a period is filed you can lock it: later changes post to the open period as adjustments, and the filed return stays as submitted. If an error calls for a revised return, you file that on the portal.