Dubai: Saudi Arabia plans to impose a 5 per cent value added tax on gasoline from January 1, 2018, the Saudi tax department said on one of its Twitter accounts.
The announcement on a special VAT Twitter account set up by the General Authority of Zakat and Tax came in response to a question from a Saudi citizen.
The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia will introduce value-added tax (VAT) next January but other countries in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) may do so later in the year.
Their state finances pressured by low oil prices, GCC countries have jointly agreed to one of the biggest changes in their tax policy for decades - imposition of VAT at a 5 per cent rate next year.
But the move will involve major administrative and technical challenges for GCC governments, requiring them to draft detailed regulations, register companies paying the tax and create bureaucracies to oversee the system.
The UAE has started registering businesses for VAT from mid-September and regulations covering implementation of those laws in the fourth quarter. Firms with annual revenues of at least $100,000 must register or face penalties.
The UAE expected to register 300,000 to 350,000 companies for VAT and that the tax was likely to push overall consumer prices up by roughly 1.4 per cent.