What the f***?

Brown nosing taken to the nth degree.

The National

very much an, "I'm all right jack", sod the people who built the country on $300 a month who will be really hit by VAT.

Some people live in cloud cuckoo land.

Calm down snowflake.

No I just think they live in super duper selfish self-centered social darwinist land .

they can make a start by paying the full amount for Dewa like the rest of us

.....and extending basic human tights to migrant workers ?

or even polyester ones

Of course, wouldn't want to denier them their rights to tights.

5% VAT is not the end of the world.

The potential excise duty could be an interesting one though...

VAT in UAE: Gold jewellery, tobacco to be taxed | GulfNews.com

Of course - but nor will it actually be 5%. It will be applied as 10%, 5% for the government, and 5% for me for collecting it for them. Then round it up to the nearest dirham/ten

It won't stay at 5% for long.

just waiting for them to tell us that it will be 5pct for foreigners and 1pct for locals

It's not a big issue I am already known all information about the VAT in UAE. The government of UAE all these of us. I know we are facing some problem but after we can enjoy it.
some basic thing in the VAT like VAT Return, VAT News, and VAT Registration

Ive visited the uae every few years for about the last 25. I stopped about 7 years ago as prices rose to make it plain expensive, the place lost a lot of its charm, and i think people got less courteous too. I cant help thinking that the generic slide towards more money grabbing is part of the decline. How dependant on visitors is the uae though? Not very i suspect?

Anyway i now prefer oman.

Except that Oman, having decided to defer implementation of VAT until, possibly, next year has snuck in a tourist tax. However, unlike the UAE where this is a flat dirham charge depending on the star rating of a hotel on a per night basis, the Oman tourist tax is 5% on hotel room rate AND ‘international’ cafes, restaurant and bar charges plus a further 10% tax on ticket prices for all museum, cinema and other entertainment venues. So, 10% Municipality tax, 7% service charge and 5% hotel room and eating out/drinking bills.