Autonomy

Are you meant to pay this when you sign a lease and if so are you meant to get a receipt to prove this has been paid?

I don't remember paying this? Should I have? Will they come and lock me up

I checked out the www.dm.gov.ae site and it's not mentioned...

Any ideas...? I think I might (for some reason) have prove I paid this, but I haven't, I was never asked to pay it and if I wanted to pay it, which I don't, I don't know where to even pay it... if you so see what I mean!!!

Kassy

Hey,
If you haven't paid it, means your employer has been paying it all along. The onus is on the employer to make this payment or ensure that the payment is made, else their Trade license doesn't get renewed by the municipality.

Hope this helps

Kassy

trailingspouse

Are you talking about the Housing Tax that now gets added to the DEWA bills?

Autonomy

Hello... no - that's automatic I think? I'm talking when you sign a lease and pay deposit, first cheque, agents fee( ) etc You are meant to pay 5% of yearly rent. To who though? The estate agent? If so - is it their responsibility not mine? Or my sponser / employer as per Kassy (thankie) above?

See Zappy Explorer for brief mention of this.....

Thankie again.

Auto.

Jeeper

I always thought the housing tax that was recently introduced was a way of collecting the 5% tax you speak of that no one ever paid.
So I think the original one has been flagged in favour of the housing tax....

BurpusMe

There are two eras.

1) The "old days".
You were supposed to remit 5% of your rent to the municipality.
Nobody did it because they either didn't know, or care to do so.

2) Now.
You are still supposed to remit 5% of your rent to the municipality.
When you sign up for DEWA, you need a lease to do so.
Because of this -- they know what you pay for rent.
Every bill has a portion of this annual 5% tax.

Some people have been hit by this.. some not.
If they don't get you this year - they will get you next year, or perhaps when you move, inshalla.

BurpusMe

I was shocked to learn about it too, as I was misled to believe that UAE is tax-free.
Obviously it's not.

Jeeper

generally documentation about the place will only say UAE has no INCOME tax.
There are plenty of actual taxes (alchohol, housing etc) and plenty of hidden taxes called 'fees'......

shoushou

Just like in some banking circles, they substitute the word interest with profit...

Eeyore

Not quite true - from its inception, government workers were required to pay the municipality charge in full, up front, when taking a lease. No pay, no accommodation!

When I arrived in Dubai back in March, my estate agent told me that the reason everybody else managed to avoid paying the fee was simply that there was no real mechanism for collecting it from anyone apart from government workers. The DEWA approach was the obvious one, but DEWA didn't want the extra work and actively fought against it, which helped delay it for a while. FWIW it was not, and never has been, anything to do with employers; until it started being added to DEWA bills, the only income being generated by the fee was from the government workers who couldn't avoid it - which is why the municipality has been so keen to get everyone paying it.

It could be worse... the rumour back in March was that it might be levied on everyone as a single, lump-sum payment each year. Being monthly instalments, it's at least a bit more manageable.

Our first few DEWA bills were fee-free; IIRC, they started hitting us around August.

That's only used in relation to Shariah-compliant finance, though, isn't it?

BurpusMe

A half-dozen people I know haven't had this added to their DEWA bill yet. I think I was started on that in August.

shoushou

There is a 5% chance that Im pregnant....

Autonomy

It's not been added to my DEWA ever since moving in back in March 05...

Eeyore

Don't worry, it'll come!

You probably won't get any warning, either - it'll just appear

Happiness

You will not get any warning for sure, you think they might actually be that organised to explain?