Found an error in your corporate tax registration or return — how do you actually fix it?
We found an error in our corporate tax registration or return — do we wait for the FTA to catch it, or correct it ourselves?
A corporate-tax-specific voluntary disclosure covers more than a wrong figure on a filed return. It can also cover an error in the registration itself — a tax period set incorrectly, an election that should have been made from the start (such as Small Business Relief or the cash basis) but wasn't, or an incorrectly claimed Qualifying Free Zone status — each with its own formal correction route, not a quiet adjustment on the next return.
The penalty mechanics: correcting it yourself before the FTA opens an audit is charged at a monthly rate on the underpaid amount, running from the original due date to the correction date. If the FTA discovers the same error first during an audit, the cost is noticeably higher — a fixed penalty added on top of that same monthly rate, plus late-payment interest. That means the total cost climbs month by month for every month the error goes uncorrected.
Timing is really what makes the difference: a disclosure you file proactively, with the numbers already reconciled and explained, reads very differently to the FTA than the same numbers surfacing mid-audit. At RASEEKH, the moment we find an error — in a registration or in an old return — we start the correct disclosure process immediately rather than waiting.