Violation of refraining from issuing the tax invoice

Muscat: As part of the tireless efforts exerted by the Tax Authority to educate taxpayers about the application of various types of taxes, and within the framework of the Tax Authority’s efforts to combat tax evasion crimes, one of the reports received by the Tax Authority via the call center which is received a report about the refusal of a taxpayer (company) to issue tax invoices including VAT in order to evade the payment of VAT.

In light of this, a team was formed consisting of a number of judicial control commissioners in the Tax Authority to go to the site of the violating company and verify the validity of the report.

The judicial control commissioners of the Tax Authority found that the shop is already registered as subject to VAT and therefore must apply the provisions of the VAT Law on goods and services, including issuing a tax invoice to the customer. After verifying all the data of the taxpayer and his violation of the provisions of the law, an administrative violation report was issued in the amount of OMR3.000, and the responsible worker was summoned to attend the headquarters of the Tax Authority.

The Tax Authority calls on all VAT registrants to abide by the provisions of the VAT Law, submit tax returns on the legally specified dates and disclose the tax. It should be noted that in the event of non-compliance with registration in the VAT system for those whose annual revenues or supplies exceed the amount of OMR38.500, or if the tax return does not include the real data of VAT, it is considered a crime under the text of Article (101) of the Value Added Tax Law No.121/2020, and its punishment is imprisonment for a period of up to three years, and a penalty of up to OMR20.000.

Moreover, failure to submit a tax return for any tax period, failure to issue a tax invoice, or failure to keep tax documents and invoices are also considered as a crime under Article (100) of the Value Added Tax Law, and its punishment is imprisonment that may reach one year and a penalty that reach to OMR 10.000.  

It is worth mentioning that the Tax Authority has started widespread awareness campaigns targeting all taxpayers in various governorates of the Sultanate of Oman to confirm on the importance of tax compliance by taxpayers in order to preserve their rights and avoid getting penalties and fines.