Bahrain: The National Bureau for Revenue (NBR) conducted 296 inspection visits within the local markets across different governorates in Bahrain during April and May 2024. These inspections aimed to monitor the market and provide high levels of protection for customer rights and combat VAT and Excise evasion, along with spreading awareness of the rightful ways of implementation.
The NBR underscored its commitment to enhancing the level of business compliance within the local markets and ensuring adherence to all regulations and legislation for the effective implementation of VAT and Excise, including the Digital Stamps Scheme.
The NBR has confirmed that effective oversight of the local market has resulted in reporting 69 VAT and excise violations, in which administrative fines have been imposed by the law. The reported violations were related to the failure to comply with the conditions for issuing VAT invoices and the failure to show prices inclusive of VAT, in addition to the failure to display a VAT certificate in a visible location. They also reported a violation of non-compliance with the digital stamp scheme related to the supply of excise goods without a valid and active digital stamp.
The NBR identified several violations that may be considered suspicions of VAT or excise evasion, in which legal actions will be taken against violators and referred those who are proven to have committed evasion crimes to the competent authorities to initiate a criminal case against them, which may be punishable by imprisonment for five years and a fine equivalent to three times the amount of VAT due or by imprisonment for one year and a fine equivalent to double the evaded excise according to the Excise law.
The NBR emphasised that the cooperation of businesses and consumers is integral to the success of the ongoing inspection campaigns to achieve the highest compliance standards, urging all concerned parties to report any violations or evasions of the VAT or Excise law by contacting the NBR call centre at 80008001 available 24 hours, 7 days a week, or through the National Suggestions & Complaints System (Tawasul), or by email through vat@nbr.gov.bh for VAT related queries, and to ds@nbr.gov.bh for the Digital Stamps Scheme queries.
BNA:260624