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UAE Taxation & Regulatory Compliance · Corporate Tax Services

Corporate Tax Health Check

Most Corporate Tax exposure in the UAE is not created by a bad-faith decision — it is created quietly, over one or two filing cycles, by positions taken under deadline pressure and never independently re-checked.

Chartered Accountants · Dubai · Since 1986

What Corporate Tax Health Check is

A Corporate Tax Health Check is a structured, point-in-time diagnostic review of a taxable person's Corporate Tax position — registration, computation, elections, and filed returns — carried out against Federal Decree-Law No. 47 of 2022 on the Taxation of Corporations and Businesses (the UAE Corporate Tax Law), its Executive Regulations, Ministerial and Cabinet Decisions, and the Tax Procedures Law (Federal Decree-Law No. 28 of 2022, as amended). It is a proactive engagement, undertaken by the taxable person's own initiative rather than in response to any Federal Tax Authority (FTA) notification, audit, or query — the objective is to find and quantify gaps in the filing position while they are still curable through the taxable person's own action, before the FTA's own review or risk-based selection process finds them independently.

The review is built around the same technical questions an FTA audit would actually test, applied to a snapshot of the business's current position rather than to a live dispute. It confirms whether Corporate Tax registration was completed correctly and within the applicable timeline, and whether the Tax Registration Number and EmaraTax profile match the trade licence, financial year, and legal structure on record. It re-performs the reconciliation from accounting income to taxable income, checking every add-back and deduction against the specific Corporate Tax Law provision that permits or requires it, and tests whether the realisation-basis election (if made) has been applied consistently across the relevant asset and liability categories. Where the taxable person is a Free Zone entity, the health check independently re-tests the Qualifying Free Zone Person (QFZP) conditions for the period under review — adequate substance in the UAE, the composition of Qualifying versus non-Qualifying Income, the de minimis threshold, and whether audited financial statements exist — because a QFZP claim that is even slightly overstated converts the entire tax period's income to the standard 9% rate rather than a partial adjustment.

Where the business has related-party or Connected Person transactions, the health check evaluates whether those transactions are priced on an arm's length basis, whether a Transfer Pricing Disclosure Form was filed with the return where required, and whether a Local File and Master File exist and were prepared contemporaneously where the applicable revenue or transaction thresholds are met. It also tests the Small Business Relief election, where claimed, against the revenue threshold and the eligibility conditions that must hold in both the relevant and prior tax periods, and checks whether tax loss carry-forwards are being tracked correctly, including the 75% utilisation limit that applies against taxable income in a later period. Across all of this, the review is anchored to the fact that Corporate Tax applies to financial years starting on or after 1 June 2023, and that the earliest filed periods are also the periods filed with the least settled interpretive guidance available at the time — first-year elections and Free Zone assessments made before much of the detailed Ministerial guidance had been fully digested by the market are precisely the positions most worth re-checking now that FTA practice has matured.

A health check produces a written, prioritised diagnostic report — not a verbal assurance and not a filed submission to the FTA. Each finding is classified by its likely materiality and by whether it is a documentation gap that can be closed with better records, a technical position that needs to be corrected going forward, or a genuine historical exposure that may warrant a voluntary disclosure under the Tax Procedures Law before any FTA notification arrives. That last distinction is the one with the sharpest financial consequence: a self-identified correction filed as a voluntary disclosure generally carries a materially more favourable penalty outcome under Cabinet Decision No. 75 of 2023 than the same error found later by the FTA during an audit — but that advantage exists only in the window before an audit notification is issued, which is exactly the window a health check is designed to use while it is still open.

When a Corporate Tax Health Check applies to you

You have filed one or more Corporate Tax returns, prepared internally or by a generalist provider, and have never had the underlying positions independently reviewed

You are a Free Zone entity claiming the 0% Qualifying Free Zone Person regime and want the substance, Qualifying Income, and de minimis positions re-tested before the FTA selects your period for review

Your business has related-party or Connected Person transactions and you are not confident the pricing and documentation would withstand FTA scrutiny

You claimed Small Business Relief or made a realisation-basis election in an early return and want the eligibility and consistency of that position confirmed

You are preparing for a fundraise, acquisition, or exit and want a clean, documented Corporate Tax position before external due diligence surfaces gaps you could have found first

Your group structure, activities, or Free Zone status have changed since your original Corporate Tax registration and you are unsure whether your filing positions still reflect that

You have never received any FTA correspondence and want to stay that way — a health check is the lower-cost, lower-pressure alternative to finding out your position was wrong during a live audit

You suspect, but have not confirmed, that an error exists in a filed return and want a professional assessment of whether a voluntary disclosure is warranted before any FTA notification arrives

Your VAT and Corporate Tax records touch the same transactions and you want both positions reconciled proactively rather than discovering an inconsistency only when one tax is queried

When a different engagement is more appropriate

You have already received an FTA audit notification, information request, or assessment — that calls for Corporate Tax Audit Assistance or Representation Before Tax Authorities, which are structured around a live statutory response clock, not a diagnostic review

You have not yet registered for Corporate Tax or filed a first return — that calls for Corporate Tax registration and impact assessment, which establish the position rather than review an existing one

You need your current-period return prepared and filed, with no interest yet in reviewing prior periods — that is Corporate Tax Return Filing & Compliance, a recurring compliance engagement rather than a one-off diagnostic

You are asking a narrow, single-transaction question about how a specific arrangement should be treated before it happens — that is Corporate Tax Advisory, a forward-looking structuring engagement rather than a backward-looking review

Your query is purely about VAT treatment with no Corporate Tax dimension — that sits with our VAT compliance and advisory service line, which follows a different statutory framework

You already know a specific error exists and simply need it corrected and filed — that is a direct voluntary disclosure or amendment engagement, not a broad diagnostic review

You want a guaranteed clean bill of health regardless of what the underlying records show — a health check reports what it finds, including exposures the business would rather not have confirmed in writing

You are not prepared to share the filed returns, computation workpapers, financial statements, and underlying ledgers — a health check cannot be performed meaningfully from summary description alone

Your business has already engaged another advisor for the identical scope of review and simply wants a second informal opinion without a documented file — that is better scoped as a limited technical opinion, not a full health check

Structure Comparison

Corporate Tax Health Check vs related UAE Corporate Tax engagements

FeatureCorporate Tax Health CheckCorporate Tax Audit AssistanceCorporate Tax Impact AssessmentAnnual CT Return Filing & ComplianceCorporate Tax Advisory
TriggerTaxable person's own initiative, no FTA involvementFTA audit notification, document request, or assessment already issuedNew entity, restructuring, or first-time Corporate Tax applicability assessmentRoutine annual filing obligation under the CT LawA planned transaction or decision needing a tax position before it happens
Primary counterpartNone externally — internal diagnostic, client-facing reportFTA audit team, via EmaraTax and correspondenceInternal decision-makers, ahead of registration or a structural changeFTA, via periodic EmaraTax return filingInternal decision-makers; FTA only if a clarification is sought
Core PNPC outputWritten, prioritised diagnostic report with materiality-rated findingsReconstructed technical file, FTA response pack, clarification meeting supportApplicability memo, registration roadmap, and structural recommendationsFiled CT return with supporting workpapersStructuring memo or FTA clarification request
Time pressureLow — client-driven timeline, no statutory clock runningHigh — FTA information requests carry fixed response windows with penalty exposureModerate — tied to registration deadlines or transaction timingFixed annual deadline — generally 9 months from the end of the tax periodLow — advisory timing is generally client-driven
What a poor result triggersVoluntary disclosure assessment, remediation plan, or referral to audit-readiness workAdditional tax assessed, plus audit-specific penalties for non-cooperationA different registration or structuring path recommended before commitmentLate filing and late payment penalties under Cabinet Decision No. 75 of 2023None directly — but a poor structuring decision creates future audit exposure
Typical PNPC scopeRegistration review, computation re-performance, QFZP re-test, transfer pricing spot-check, prioritised findings reportFull audit lifecycle management, document assembly, FTA liaison, meeting attendanceScope, structure, and jurisdiction analysis ahead of a decisionReturn preparation, computation, and filing on a recurring annual basisScenario modelling, memo preparation, and clarification requests

A health check is frequently the engagement that precedes and prevents the others — a business that runs a health check proactively and remediates what it finds materially reduces the likelihood of a difficult audit later, and often converts what would have been an FTA-discovered adjustment into a lower-penalty voluntary disclosure instead. PNPC scopes the health check independently but designs its findings with exactly that downstream audit-readiness lens in mind.

How it works
#Stage & What PNPC DoesWhat Businesses Get Wrong Without CA GuidanceTimeline
1Scoping the Review — Fixing which tax periods, entities, and issues are in scopeWe confirm which financial years, which group entities, and which specific concerns (Free Zone status, transfer pricing, a suspected error) the health check should cover. A vague, unscoped 'check everything' request produces a vague, unusable report — we fix the boundary in writing before starting.Day 1–2
2Registration & Profile Verification — Confirming the basics actually matchWe verify the Corporate Tax Registration Number, the registered financial year, the EmaraTax profile details, and whether these match the trade licence, legal structure, and any group registration currently on record. A stale or mismatched EmaraTax profile is a common, entirely avoidable finding that businesses rarely check themselves.Week 1
3Computation Re-Performance — Rebuilding the accounting-to-taxable-income reconciliation independentlyWe independently re-derive the taxable income computation from the financial statements, rather than reviewing only the figure the original preparer arrived at — testing every add-back, deduction, and exempt-income treatment against the specific Corporate Tax Law provision it relies on.Week 1–3
4Election Consistency Check — Realisation basis, Small Business Relief, and other electionsWhere a realisation-basis election was made, we test whether it has been applied consistently across the relevant asset and liability categories in every period since election. Where Small Business Relief was claimed, we re-test the revenue threshold and eligibility conditions for each period claimed, since a marginal miscalculation can retroactively invalidate the entire claim.Week 2
5Free Zone / QFZP Re-Test — Confirming the 0% claim actually holdsFor Free Zone clients, we independently re-test the Qualifying Free Zone Person conditions — adequate substance, Qualifying Income composition, the de minimis threshold, and audited financial statements — for each period under review. Losing QFZP status is an all-or-nothing outcome for the tax period, so this is treated as a distinct, high-priority workstream rather than a single checklist line.Week 2–3, where applicable
6Related-Party & Transfer Pricing Spot-Check — Testing whether pricing positions have supportWe review whether Connected Person and related-party transactions were priced on an arm's length basis, whether the Transfer Pricing Disclosure Form was filed correctly, and whether a Local File and Master File exist where the applicable thresholds are met. An unsupported intercompany management fee is one of the most common findings at this stage.Week 2–3
7Loss Carry-Forward & Group Position Review — Checking the numbers are still being tracked correctlyWhere tax losses are being carried forward, we confirm the utilisation tracking, including the 75% limit against taxable income in a later period, and where a Tax Group election is in place, we confirm the consolidated position and intra-group eliminations are being maintained correctly.Week 3
8Documentation Gap Mapping — Identifying which positions lack contemporaneous supportFor every material position reviewed, we record whether adequate contemporaneous documentation exists — a benchmarking study, board minutes, a technical memo prepared at the time — versus positions that are correct in outcome but currently undocumented, versus positions that are genuinely unsupported.Week 3
9Materiality & Risk Rating — Prioritising findings by exposure and likelihood of FTA scrutinyEvery finding is rated for its likely quantum if disallowed and the likelihood an FTA audit would actually surface it, so the client can see immediately which items are urgent versus which are lower-priority housekeeping.Week 3–4
10Voluntary Disclosure Assessment — Deciding, for each genuine error, whether self-correction is warrantedFor any finding that represents a genuine historical error rather than a documentation gap, we assess whether a voluntary disclosure under the Tax Procedures Law is the appropriate next step, given that the favourable penalty treatment for self-correction disappears the moment an FTA audit notification arrives.Week 4
11Written Diagnostic Report — Delivering findings in a structured, prioritised formatThe health check concludes with a written report setting out every finding, its materiality rating, its supporting basis, and a recommended remediation action — not a verbal debrief. This becomes the roadmap for the remediation stage that follows.Week 4
12Remediation Roadmap Discussion — Agreeing what gets fixed, in what orderWe walk the client through the report, agree priorities, and scope any follow-on work — documentation rebuild, a voluntary disclosure filing, a transfer pricing benchmarking study, or a QFZP structuring correction — as distinct, separately scoped engagements.Week 4–5
13Process Fix for Future Periods — Building the discipline so the next filing is health-check-clean from the outsetWhere the review finds recurring process gaps — no contemporaneous workpaper discipline, no transfer pricing calendar, no QFZP substance monitoring — we recommend the specific process change needed so future periods do not repeat the same findings.Following report delivery

Realistic timeline: a health check on a single, straightforward entity with no material Free Zone or transfer pricing complexity typically completes within three to four weeks from full document receipt. A multi-entity group with Free Zone claims and related-party transactions across several periods can extend to six to eight weeks. The single greatest driver of speed is how quickly the client can produce the underlying financial statements, computation workpapers, and supporting records requested at scoping — a health check, unlike an audit response, has no external deadline forcing pace, but delayed document production simply extends the client's own window of uncertainty.

Document Checklist
Registration & Entity Documents

Corporate Tax registration certificate and Tax Registration Number (TRN)

Trade licence copy, including any amendments during the periods under review

Memorandum and Articles of Association, and details of ultimate beneficial ownership and group structure

EmaraTax portal profile details, including registered financial year and activity classification

Free Zone licence and lease/facility documentation, where Qualifying Free Zone Person status is claimed

Filed Returns & Computation Workings

All filed Corporate Tax returns for the periods under review, together with the underlying computation workpaper

The accounting income to taxable income reconciliation for each period, with the statutory basis for each add-back and deduction

Details of the realisation basis election, if made, and evidence of its application in each subsequent period

Tax loss carry-forward schedules, including 75% utilisation limit tracking

Small Business Relief election documentation and revenue workings, where claimed

Financial Statements & Accounting Records

Audited or management financial statements for each period under review

General ledger, trial balance, and chart of accounts

Fixed asset register and depreciation/amortisation schedules

Schedules for material expense categories — professional fees, related-party charges, provisions, and write-offs

Related-Party & Transfer Pricing Documentation

Transfer Pricing Disclosure Form as filed with each return, where applicable

Local File and Master File, where the taxable person meets the applicable thresholds

Intercompany agreements, invoices, and pricing policies for related-party and Connected Person transactions

Any benchmarking studies or other evidence supporting arm's length pricing

Free Zone Qualifying Person Evidence (Where Applicable)

Evidence of adequate substance in the UAE — office lease, qualified full-time employees, and operating expenditure

Income schedules segregating Qualifying Income from non-Qualifying Income, and the de minimis calculation

Details of any transactions with mainland UAE entities or non-Free Zone Persons

Audited financial statements specific to the Free Zone Person

Prior Correspondence & Advisory History

Any prior FTA clarifications, private rulings, or correspondence relevant to the tax positions reviewed

Records of any voluntary disclosures previously filed with the FTA for the entity

Prior tax opinions, memos, or advisory notes from PNPC or another advisor relevant to positions under review

Ongoing obligations
PhaseTriggered ByPNPC CA GuidanceRisk If Ignored
Initial Health CheckClient's own initiative, no FTA involvementFull diagnostic review as scoped, delivered as a written, prioritised report with materiality ratings for every finding.Skipping this step leaves the business's true Corporate Tax position untested until an FTA audit, investor due diligence, or acquisition tests it involuntarily and without the benefit of a self-corrected window.
Remediation of Documentation GapsHealth check identifies positions that are correct but undocumentedRebuild the contemporaneous file — benchmarking studies, technical memos, board minutes — so future scrutiny of the same position finds it properly supported.An undocumented position, even if substantively correct, is significantly harder to defend under audit than one supported by a file built at the time.
Voluntary Disclosure DecisionHealth check identifies a genuine historical errorAssess promptly whether a voluntary disclosure under the Tax Procedures Law is warranted — the penalty advantage over an FTA-identified error is material but exists only before any audit notification arrives.Delaying this decision risks an FTA notification landing before the disclosure is filed, permanently forfeiting the more favourable penalty treatment.
QFZP Structural CorrectionHealth check identifies a Free Zone substance or income-mix gapCorrect the underlying substance or income composition issue going forward, and assess whether the current or prior period's QFZP claim needs to be revisited.An uncorrected QFZP gap compounds each subsequent period the entity continues to claim 0% treatment it may not fully support.
Transfer Pricing Documentation BuildHealth check identifies unsupported related-party pricingCommission the benchmarking study and prepare the Local File / Master File before the next filing, rather than after an FTA query arrives.Unsupported related-party pricing is one of the most common and material FTA audit adjustments, and is materially cheaper to fix proactively than to defend reactively.
Annual Filing Process UpdateHealth check identifies a recurring process gapRebuild the ongoing filing and documentation workflow — contemporaneous workpaper discipline, a transfer pricing calendar, QFZP substance monitoring — so future periods are filed health-check-clean from the outset.Without a process fix, the same findings recur in the next health check or, worse, in the next FTA audit.
Periodic Re-CheckOne to two filing cycles after the initial health check, or after a material business changeRe-run a scoped health check whenever the business structure, Free Zone status, or transaction profile changes materially, and periodically even absent a specific trigger, since FTA interpretive guidance continues to develop.A position that was defensible under the guidance available at the time of an earlier filing can look different against more settled, current FTA practice — periodic re-checking catches this drift before an audit does.
Transaction or Exit ReadinessFundraise, acquisition, or exit process beginsUse the health check output as the Corporate Tax component of transaction readiness, so buyer or investor due diligence encounters a position PNPC has already tested and, where needed, remediated.An unresolved Corporate Tax exposure discovered during external due diligence can delay or reprice a transaction and become a specific indemnity or escrow condition.
Frequently asked
What exactly is a Corporate Tax Health Check, and how is it different from just filing our return correctly?

Filing correctly addresses the current period going forward. A health check looks backward and sideways — it independently re-tests the positions already taken in filed returns, the registration and profile details on record, and any Free Zone or related-party positions, to confirm they would hold up if the FTA reviewed them today. It is a diagnostic exercise, not a filing exercise, and it produces a written report rather than a submission to the FTA.

Practitioner noteWe routinely find that a return filed correctly in the arithmetic sense still rests on a position — an exemption claim, a Free Zone assumption — that was never independently stress-tested. The health check is specifically designed to close that gap.
We have never had any contact from the FTA. Is a health check still worth doing?

Yes — arguably it is most valuable precisely when there is no live FTA matter, because every finding can still be addressed on the taxable person's own terms and timeline. A health check performed after an audit notification has already arrived is functionally closer to audit-readiness work under time pressure; one performed with no notification pending has the full range of remediation options available, including the more favourable voluntary disclosure route where a genuine error is found.

Practitioner noteThe businesses that get the most value from a health check are the ones who run it precisely because nothing has gone wrong yet — waiting for a trigger before checking defeats much of the purpose.
Will a health check tell the FTA anything about us, or create a record they could use against us?

No — a health check is an internal diagnostic engagement between PNPC and the client. It is not filed with, or reported to, the FTA, and its findings remain the client's own confidential information unless and until the client chooses to act on them, for example by filing a voluntary disclosure. The report itself is a working document to guide the client's own decisions, not a submission.

Practitioner noteWe are careful to frame this clearly for clients who worry that 'looking too closely' creates risk — in practice, the risk runs the other way: not looking closely enough is what tends to surface badly, and later, under FTA scrutiny.
What does the health check actually check, in plain terms?

It covers four broad areas: whether your Corporate Tax registration and EmaraTax profile are accurate and complete; whether your taxable income computation correctly applies the add-backs, deductions, and elections the Corporate Tax Law requires; whether any Free Zone Qualifying Free Zone Person claim genuinely meets all of its conditions; and whether related-party transactions are priced and documented defensibly. The exact scope is agreed with you at the outset based on your structure and risk profile.

Practitioner noteWe always confirm scope in writing before starting — a health check scoped too narrowly can miss the exact issue that matters, while one scoped too broadly for a simple business wastes time and fee on low-risk areas.
How is a health check priced, and how long does it take?

Scope and fee depend on the number of entities, tax periods, and the complexity of Free Zone and related-party positions involved — a single straightforward entity with one filed period is a modest, fixed-scope engagement, while a multi-entity group with several periods and Free Zone claims is priced accordingly. We provide a written scope and fee estimate before beginning substantive work. Timelines typically run from a few weeks for a simple entity to six to eight weeks for a more complex group.

Practitioner noteWe would rather scope this precisely upfront than quote a single generic figure — the range between a simple single-entity check and a multi-entity Free Zone group review is genuinely wide.
We are a Free Zone company. Why does the health check spend so much attention on our Qualifying Free Zone Person status specifically?

Because the QFZP conditions — adequate substance, the Qualifying Income mix, the de minimis threshold, and audited financial statements — must all be satisfied together for a given tax period, and failing any one of them generally means the entity is treated as a standard, non-Qualifying Free Zone Person for that period, converting income that would otherwise have been taxed at 0% to the standard 9% rate. There is no partial credit for mostly meeting the conditions, which makes this one of the highest-consequence areas to get independently re-checked.

Practitioner noteWe re-test QFZP status as its own discrete workstream rather than a single checklist item, precisely because the financial consequence of getting it wrong is so much larger than most other findings a health check turns up.
If the health check finds an error, what happens next — are we obligated to correct it immediately?

There is no automatic obligation triggered by the health check itself; it is a diagnostic report, and what you do with its findings is your decision. That said, where a genuine error is identified, the practical and financial case for correcting it promptly through a voluntary disclosure is usually strong, because the favourable penalty treatment available for self-correction under the Tax Procedures Law disappears once an FTA audit notification is issued.

Practitioner noteWe present findings with a clear recommendation, but the decision to act — and the timing — sits with the client. What we do insist on is making the timing consequence of delay explicit, because that is the one variable clients sometimes underestimate.
Can PNPC do a health check on a return that another firm originally prepared?

Yes, and this is a common scenario. We independently re-derive the computation and re-test the underlying positions from first principles, rather than simply reviewing whether the original preparer's arithmetic was internally consistent — the FTA would test the substance of the position regardless of who prepared the original return, so the health check does too.

Practitioner noteThis is not a critique of the original preparer — return preparation under deadline pressure and an independent post-filing review are genuinely different exercises, and a return can look reasonable on its face while still resting on an undocumented or untested position.
Does the health check cover VAT as well, or only Corporate Tax?

The core scope is Corporate Tax, but because VAT and Corporate Tax records frequently touch the same underlying transactions, we flag any VAT-relevant inconsistency we identify during the review even though a full VAT health check is a separate, distinctly scoped engagement. Where a client wants both reviewed together, we can scope a combined engagement.

Practitioner noteWe see real value in reconciling VAT and Corporate Tax positions on the same transactions during a single review — an inconsistency between the two is exactly the kind of gap an FTA cross-check between taxes is designed to catch.
How often should a business run a Corporate Tax Health Check?

There is no statutory requirement to run one at any particular interval — it is a discretionary, proactive exercise. In practice, running one after the first one or two Corporate Tax filing cycles is valuable given how much interpretive guidance has developed since the earliest returns were filed, and re-running a scoped check after any material business change — a new Free Zone entity, a significant related-party arrangement, a restructuring — is generally worthwhile.

Practitioner noteWe recommend clients think of this the way they think of a periodic financial audit — not a one-time event, but a discipline revisited at sensible intervals or triggered by material change, rather than left indefinitely.
We are about to raise investment or sell part of the business. Should we run a health check before that process starts?

Yes — this is one of the highest-value times to run one. A Corporate Tax exposure discovered by an investor's or buyer's own due diligence team, rather than by you first, tends to get treated more conservatively by the counterparty, can slow the transaction, and can become a specific indemnity or escrow condition in the deal terms. Running the health check first lets you remediate what can be fixed and disclose clearly what cannot, on your own terms.

Practitioner noteWe have seen deals lose momentum purely because an unresolved tax question surfaced late in diligence rather than early in preparation — a health check run ahead of a transaction process consistently pays for itself here.
What if the health check finds nothing wrong at all?

That is a genuinely useful outcome in itself — a clean report gives the business documented assurance, useful for its own governance, for investor or lender conversations, and for board reporting, that its Corporate Tax position has been independently tested and holds up. We do not manufacture findings to justify the engagement; where the position is sound, the report says so plainly.

Practitioner noteA clean health check report is a genuinely useful document to have on file — it is evidence, if the position is ever later questioned, that the business exercised proper diligence at a specific point in time.
Does a Corporate Tax Health Check replace the need for an annual statutory audit?

No — they serve different purposes. A statutory financial audit expresses an opinion on whether the financial statements present fairly under the applicable accounting standard. A Corporate Tax Health Check tests whether the Corporate Tax return correctly reflects those financial statements and the specific tax law provisions that convert accounting income into taxable income. The two are complementary; the health check in fact starts by reconciling the audited financial statements to the filed Corporate Tax return as one of its first steps.

Practitioner noteWe frequently find that unexplained differences between the audited financial statements and the filed tax return are exactly the kind of gap a health check surfaces early, before an FTA auditor is the one asking why the two do not tie out.
If our group has multiple UAE entities, does the health check cover all of them or just one?

Scope is agreed at the outset and can cover a single entity, a subset, or the full group, including entities that have formed a Tax Group election for Corporate Tax purposes. For a Tax Group, the review also tests the consolidated position and the intra-group eliminations, since the FTA generally reviews the group's consolidated return but can still request records from individual member entities.

Practitioner noteGroup reviews often surface an inconsistency at a single subsidiary level that would otherwise be invisible when only the consolidated position is examined — we deliberately test both levels for group engagements.
Why PNPC Global

PNPC Corporate Tax Health Check vs a typical generalist review

DimensionTypical generalist / internal reviewPNPC Corporate Tax Health Check
Basis of reviewReviews whether the original preparer's arithmetic is internally consistentIndependently re-derives the taxable income computation from first principles against the current Corporate Tax Law
Free Zone / QFZP testingOften takes the original QFZP claim at face valueIndependently re-tests every QFZP condition — substance, income mix, de minimis, audited statements — for the period
Transfer pricing coverageFrequently limited to confirming a disclosure form was filedTests whether the underlying pricing has actual arm's length support, not just whether the form exists
Output formatA verbal debrief or a short informal noteA written, prioritised report with materiality ratings and a recommended action for every finding
Voluntary disclosure guidanceRarely addressed as a distinct, time-sensitive decisionExplicitly assessed for every genuine error found, with the penalty-timing consequence made clear
Continuity with audit defenceNo natural link to what an actual FTA audit would testBuilt using the same technical lens PNPC applies in live Corporate Tax Audit Assistance engagements
Firm groundingVariable — depends on the individual reviewer's current knowledgeA practising Chartered Accountancy firm since 1986, with a dedicated UAE Corporate Tax team tracking FTA practice as it develops

What the PNPC package includes

  1. 01

    Full Corporate Tax registration and EmaraTax profile verification

  2. 02

    Independent re-derivation of the accounting-to-taxable-income computation for every period in scope

  3. 03

    Realisation-basis election and Small Business Relief eligibility re-testing

  4. 04

    Qualifying Free Zone Person condition re-test — substance, Qualifying Income mix, de minimis, audited statements

  5. 05

    Related-party and Connected Person transfer pricing spot-check, including Transfer Pricing Disclosure Form review

  6. 06

    Local File / Master File existence and adequacy check where thresholds apply

  7. 07

    Tax loss carry-forward and utilisation-limit verification

  8. 08

    Tax Group consolidated position and intra-group elimination review, where applicable

  9. 09

    Documentation gap mapping — distinguishing correct-but-undocumented positions from genuinely unsupported ones

  10. 10

    Materiality and FTA-scrutiny-likelihood rating for every finding

  11. 11

    Voluntary disclosure assessment for any genuine historical error identified

  12. 12

    Written, prioritised diagnostic report with a recommended remediation roadmap

  13. 13

    Direct continuity into Corporate Tax Audit Assistance or Representation Before Tax Authorities, using the same technical file, if a matter later escalates

  14. 14

    Access to PNPC's Dubai Corporate Tax team, backed by our Chennai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad offices for any cross-border India-UAE dimension

Find out exactly where your Corporate Tax position stands — on your own terms, before the FTA asks.

Jurisdiction

🇦🇪
United Arab Emirates

Free zone, mainland & offshore

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