Asharqia Chamber held a workshop on Thursday (April 25, 2019) entitled "Implementing Regulations for Zakat Collection."
Khalid bin Obaid Al-Dhahri, advisor at the General Authority for Zakat and Tax, emphasized that the new regulation of Zakat, which began its work early this year, has excluded the debt completely from the bowl of Zakat.
He explained that the work of this regulation began from the companies that start its fiscal year by that date, while companies that were before that date will be subject to the old regulation.
He stressed that this regulation is an updated version of the version issued in 1438, which included after the renewal of the regulations and various work procedures for the collection of Zakat from companies and institutions and send it to the Authority.
He said that in order to develop the system of collection and ensure the new regulation, the Authority formed a special legitimacy committee to receive all the observations and proposals.
It has come to the conclusion that debt should not be subject to zakat at all, so the Zakat bowl has been thoroughly purified.
He said that the major problem in Zakat accounting is debt, as there are seven main views in this regard, and all of which are legitimate.
Therefore, the Authority earlier took the opinion that goes that debt does not prevent zakat, unless it was short did not complete a year.
He explained that the Authority relies in dealing with the taxpayers in two ways.
The first is "discretionary accounting", which is for those who do not have financial statements and do not have accounting procedures.
The second is for taxpayers who are required to issue financial statements such as companies and other commercial activities.
Therefore, the new regulation takes into account the date of commencement of the debt and postponed if it was within 345 days or more from the beginning of the Zakat year, the Authority applies the "proportionality" calculation mechanism, e.g., the calculation of the value of the debt on the number of days utilized in the Zakat year.
"The addition of debt in Zakat makes a big difference in extracting it," he said.
He stressed the existence of great differences between the taxpayers and the Authority in the past years on how to calculate the debt.
He said that the finance companies and banks came out of the new regulation regarding the calculation of Zakat in Articles (4) and (5), where a special regulation has been issued in accordance with Article (7), which grants the Governor of the Authority to issue regulations for special activities.
He said that the new regulation gave the objections of the taxpayers very important, as the new regulation stipulates the duration of the objection within 60 days to the Authority.
The Authority will respond within 90 days, with the right of the taxpayers to escalate the objection to the Committee of Disputes and the Appeals Committee in the event that the Authority did not respond within 90 days.
He stressed the need to pay the taxpayers within 60 days of notification of the Authority unless there are objections.
