#Dubai Weighs Reducing Business Fees as #UAE Unveils Corporate Tax - Bloomberg

Dubai Weighs Reducing Business Fees as UAE Unveils Corporate Tax - Bloomberg

Dubai will consider cutting costs for businesses operating in the Middle East’s commercial hub after the United Arab Emirates set out plans to introduce taxes on corporate profit from next year.

“The fees imposed by the government of Dubai on commercial activities are affordable in the absence of corporate tax,” Abdulrahman Saleh Al Saleh, director general of Dubai’s Department of Finance, said in a statement. After the introduction of the corporate tax, “we will be keen to study those fees and look into the possibility of gradually reducing them in line with emergent trends.”

Dubai’s benchmark stock index fell the most in the Middle East on Tuesday. The UAE, of which Dubai is part, plans to tax corporate earnings from June next year.

The news is “clearly negative” for equities, said Hasnain Malik, head of research at Tellimer. Shareholders in publicly listed companies are among those likely to feel the impact of the tax because of the transfer of value to the government, he wrote in a note.