What are the business tax submissions in Egypt and its deadlines?
Any company in Egypt nowadays is under huge pressure of new and numerous tax regulations regardless the size of a company, especially that these new regulations have imposed a lot of heavy penalties on any disobeyed company.
Therefore, all companies must be aware of all deadlines of tax submissions to avoid being subject to any kind of penalties due to either delayed submissions or lack of information.
The first step would be registration (sign up) of the company at the electronic portal of the Egyptian Tax Authority, and there is a subscription fee for this portal of EGP 500 that shall be renewed and paid for annually.
As for the tax submissions of a company, they shall include the following:
- Income tax return: which shall be submitted annually on April 30.
- Payroll/earnings tax return: submitted every 3 months. Required documents include filled social insurance form No. 2 of the company, and the ID/passport copies of the partners and employees of the company.
- Withholding tax return: submitted every 3 months.
- Value-Added-Tax (VAT): The company will be required to register in the VAT only if:
- It starts with the importation activity under its name directly; or
- The total sales exceed the amount of EGP 500,000. The first EGP 500,000 will be tax exempted, and the tax assessment will start based on any amount exceeding this first EGP 500,000.
- In all cases, once the company is registered in VAT, it shall collect 14% VAT on sales, and deduct 14% on inputs, then the difference between those amounts shall be paid.
- The VAT tax returns are submitted monthly.
The company shall on a monthly basis provide two separate excel sheets; a) one for purchases detailing every item related to the company’s purchases during the previous month; and b) the other is for the sales to detail every item related to the company’s sales during the same month. Along with these excel sheets, the documents supporting these transactions will be required.
It is to be noted that all the tax returns are submitted through the Tax Authority’s electronic portal.
The records that the company shall currently authenticate are as follows (we shall purchase the records and authenticate them at the General Authority for Investment):
- General daybook.
- Inventory book.
About the author:
Mr. Al-Bedeawi is the founder of Al-Bedeawi and Partners LLP, and is a member of both the Egyptian Bar Association, as well as the International Bar Association in London. He has 13 years of experience in corporate law, international contracts, franchise, trademark registration, intellectual property rights, hotels management agreements and debt collection.
Before founding the law firm, Mr. Al-Bedeawi worked as a legal consultant for a number of high-ranking tourism and real estate investment companies in Egypt, including Misr-Italy Real Estate, and Sharm Dreams Group in which he was drafting, revising and negotiating its agreements including the management agreements for its five star Hilton and Marriott hotels. Additionally, Mr. Al-Bedeawi has made a 320 million EGP acquisition for a large ceramic factory in Ain Sokhna and he was representing the selling party and chosen to be as a mediator during the performance of the sale agreement made by Mr. Al-Bedeawi himself.
