Entrepreneurial & Private Business
In an owner-managed company the person who signs the contract is often the same person who was meant to have filed the return, and the compliance calendar does not adjust for that. A company's obligations begin at its licence, not at its first profit.
MHBC Finance coordinates the accounting, tax and reporting work behind owner-managed UAE companies, from the first chart of accounts through to the board pack, so the registrations are filed when they fall due, the books hold the whole year, and the numbers behind an owner's decisions are the numbers on the return.
Corporate Tax applies at 0% on taxable income up to AED 375,000 and 9% above it, and VAT registration becomes mandatory once taxable supplies and imports exceed AED 375,000 over a twelve-month period, with the Corporate Tax return due within nine months of the end of the tax period.
Where this work lands
Owner-managed company putting its first year of records in order
Private business building a plan and a board pack off one ledger
The accounting and tax work behind an owner-managed business
The goal is simple: one set of books that satisfies the Federal Tax Authority and is still worth reading when the owner has a decision to make. For a private, owner-managed business, that work concentrates in five areas.
Books, systems and the backlog
MHBC sets up the accounting system and chart of accounts, and reconstructs any backlog, so the records the Corporate Tax Law requires you to retain for seven years exist from the start of the first tax period.
Records are not a year-end exercise. Taxable persons must keep accounting records and supporting documents from the start of the first tax period, whether or not any tax is due, so the cheapest version of this work is the one done before there is anything left to reconstruct.
Corporate Tax registration and the return
MHBC assesses your registration deadline — generally within three months of incorporation for a company formed on or after 1 March 2024 — and prepares the computation and return, filed within nine months of the end of the tax period.
Registration is required regardless of profit level, and an administrative penalty of AED 10,000 applies for late registration. A second question sits alongside it: where revenue stays within AED 3 million in the tax period, Small Business Relief may be elected and the business treated as having no taxable income, an election available for tax periods ending on or before 31 December 2026.
VAT registration and the returns that follow
MHBC measures your taxable supplies and imports against the AED 375,000 mandatory registration threshold and the AED 187,500 voluntary one, and prepares each return through the EmaraTax portal so every tax period is reported off the records the books already hold.
The test runs over a twelve-month period rather than a financial year, which is why the threshold is often crossed before anyone is watching for it. Returns are then filed for each tax period the Federal Tax Authority assigns — usually quarterly, and monthly for larger businesses — accounting for VAT charged on sales against VAT incurred on costs.
Payroll, WPS and the first hires
MHBC configures the employer registration, salary structures and payroll calendar, runs the monthly payroll and prepares the Wage Protection System salary file, then posts the payroll journal into the books so salaries and accruals are supported by records.
Which regime applies depends on where the entity is licensed: employers registered with the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation must pay wages through the Wage Protection System, and several free zones operate their own equivalent salary-transfer requirement. An employee who completes at least one year of continuous service becomes entitled to end-of-service benefits calculated on basic wage, so that accrual belongs in the books as it builds.
Reporting, planning and the year-end file
MHBC builds the budget, cash-flow plan and board reporting off your own ledger, and where audited financial statements are required — where revenue exceeds AED 50 million in the tax period, for every Qualifying Free Zone Person regardless of revenue, and for mainland companies under the Commercial Companies Law — coordinates a Ministry of Economy-licensed auditor, who performs the audit.
Bookkeeping records what already happened; the decisions an owner faces about pricing, hiring, borrowing and expansion turn on what happens next. The forecast is built from the same ledger the statutory accounts and the tax computation come out of, so the plan and the return do not end up describing two different years.
Related service
CFO Advisory
Everything above this line records what already happened. MHBC works above the monthly books with the budgets, cash-flow planning and board-ready reporting an owner-managed business needs before it prices, hires or borrows — senior financial judgement on a retained basis, without carrying a full-time executive salary.