Corporate tax: set-up, related parties, the return, filing and free zones

Interactive tutorial

Follow the course step by step in the interactive player.

Lessons

1. 1Bring the year's transactions into Tax IntelligenceThis lesson is for the tax manager. You will bring a financial year's income and expenses into Tax Intelligence from a file, so that corporate tax can be worked out from them later in the course.6 min
2. 2Set up counterparties and their zones in CT ConfigurationThis lesson is for the tax manager. You will build the list of suppliers and customers that the corporate tax calculation reads, and tell the system where each one is based: on the mainland, in a free zone, or abroad.6 min
3. 3Finish CT Configuration: employees, tax positions, free zone set-up and the vendor directoryThis lesson is for the tax manager. You will read the other three sections of CT Configuration, so you know what each one feeds into the calculation, and then complete a supplier's details in the vendor directory inside Tax Intelligence.6 min
4. 4Fill in the entity's corporate tax profileThis lesson is for the tax manager. You will record the facts about the entity that decide how its corporate tax is worked out: its registration number, its financial year, its size and type, and the standing elections it has made.6 min
5. 5Record connected persons and their payThis lesson is for the tax manager. You will record an owner, director or officer who is paid by the entity, with a market benchmark, so that any pay above the market rate is identified as not deductible for corporate tax. You will also view, correct and delete a record.7 min
6. 6Classify the year's transactions and clear the Review QueueThis lesson is for the tax manager. You will ask the system to classify the imported transactions, which gives each one a corporate tax category and a VAT treatment, and then approve the ones it holds back for a person to check.8 min
7. 7Check Small Business Relief and record the election decisionThis lesson is for the tax manager. You will read whether the entity may use Small Business Relief for a tax period, with the reason, the deadline and the effect on the return, and you will record the decision to elect or not to elect.6 min
8. 8Record a related-party transaction and its transfer-pricing methodThis lesson is for the tax manager. You will open the Related Party Registry, then record a transaction with a company in the same group, with its value and the method used to show the price is fair, so that it is ready for the transfer-pricing disclosure that goes with the corporate tax return.7 min
9. 9Assess a transfer-pricing record and keep its documentsThis lesson is for the tax manager. You will ask for a risk assessment of a transfer-pricing record, run the tested-party analysis, attach the supporting documents, and produce the local file and the CT-TP1 disclosure from the TP Docs menu.7 min
10. 10Use the transfer-pricing tools: benchmarks, adjustments, safe harbours and agreementsThis lesson is for the tax manager. You will use the tools under TP Enhancements: look up a market range from the comparables database, test a margin against it, check for safe harbours, draft an intercompany agreement, and read the year-on-year trends.7 min
11. 11Read the Compliance Maturity score and benchmarkThis lesson is for the tax manager. You will open Compliance Maturity, which the Tax manager role can now read, find the score for the Tax module, and see how the entity compares with its peers and with its own past.3 min
12. 12Track an advance pricing agreement from draftThis lesson is for the tax manager. You will open a record for an advance pricing agreement the group plans to seek, note what it will cover, record whether the entity is eligible to apply, see how the status is moved on, and delete a draft that was opened by mistake.7 min
13. 13Record a transitional election for an asset owned before corporate taxThis lesson is for the tax manager. You will record the election that keeps the gain an asset built up before corporate tax began out of taxable profit when the asset is sold. You will correct the draft, record the sale with its disposal date, and delete a draft entered by mistake.7 min
14. 14Track withholding tax and foreign tax creditsThis lesson is for the tax manager. You will open the Withholding Tax tracker, read what it holds for a year, and ask the AI assistant to find foreign tax that was withheld from the entity's income abroad, which can be credited against its corporate tax.5 min
15. 15Group structure tools: tax groups, group transfers and partnershipsThis lesson is for the tax manager. You will tour three screens under Corporate tax structure, learn what each one is for, and record a transfer of assets between two group companies so that its tax relief and its two-year watch period are tracked.7 min
16. 16Minimum top-up tax and permanent establishment assessmentsThis lesson is for the tax manager. You will record an assessment that shows whether the group falls under the domestic minimum top-up tax, and run a permanent establishment assessment for a foreign business that works with the entity.6 min
17. 17Compute the corporate tax return and read every part of itThis lesson is for the tax manager. You will work out the entity's corporate tax for 2025 from its approved transactions, read each part of the result, including the deductions table and the reconciliation to the accounts, and download the return and the working paper.9 min
18. 18Review the return before filing: the preparer's partThis lesson is for the tax manager, who prepared the return. After it has been submitted on the tax authority's portal, you open the full Corporate Tax Return page, check it once more, and see that Submit and Lock refuses the preparer: filing must be approved by a second person, which the next lesson shows.7 min
19. 19Approve and file the corporate tax return with Submit and LockThis lesson is for the compliance officer, the second person in the filing. The tax manager prepared the 2025 return and it has been submitted on the tax authority's portal. You open it from the Filing Tracker, check it without recomputing, and use Submit and Lock to approve the filing, store the acknowledgement and freeze the year.6 min
20. 20Follow the filed return: Filing Tracker, packages and penaltiesThis lesson is for the tax manager. After the return has been signed off and locked, you will confirm that the Filing Tracker shows it as filed, find the stored filing package, see what locking has done to the transactions, check the penalty recorded for late filing, and download the package for the tax authority's portal.7 min
21. 21Correct a filed return with a voluntary disclosureThis lesson is for the compliance officer. A mistake has been found in a return that is already filed and locked. You will record a voluntary disclosure, which is the Federal Tax Authority's Form 211, with the figure as filed and the corrected figure, read the penalty preview, and see how the disclosure is submitted.6 min
22. 22Register a free zone licence and its qualifying activitiesThis lesson is for the tax manager. You will switch to the group's free zone company, register its free zone licence with the activities it is allowed to carry out, and use the licence card to check those activities, create its compliance items and look up the zone's rules.8 min
23. 23Run the free zone substance assessmentThis lesson is for the tax manager. For the group's free zone company you will run the yearly substance assessment and read its result: the substance score, the criteria behind it and the de minimis test on non-qualifying revenue.9 min
24. 24Review the substance assessment as the compliance officerThis lesson is for the compliance officer, the second person in the free zone assessment. The tax manager has run the substance assessment; you read the AI assistant's result and record your review, which confirms or overrides it.4 min
25. 25Gap analysis, penalties and the five QFZP conditionsThis lesson is for the tax manager. For the group's free zone company you will run a gap analysis against the zone's rules, check for penalties, and read the five conditions that decide whether the company is a Qualifying Free Zone Person for the year, including the de minimis test on its income.7 min
26. 26The finance side: the ledger profit behind the tax reconciliationThis lesson is for the finance manager and the accountant. You will open the profit and loss report for the tax year and see the two figures the corporate tax return takes from the accounts: the ledger profit that starts its reconciliation, and the tax transactions that are not in the ledger.5 min
27. 27Draft a transfer-pricing file with the AI agent and review the draftThis lesson is for the tax manager. You will ask the AI agent to draft transfer-pricing documentation from the entity's own records, find the finished draft and its versions, and read the draft with the issues the agent itself flagged, ready for the compliance officer to sign off.6 min
28. 28Sign off an AI-drafted transfer-pricing file as the compliance officerThis lesson is for the compliance officer, the second person for transfer-pricing documents. The tax manager has had the AI agent draft the Local File; you open the draft, read what the agent flagged, and approve and sign it off.4 min
29. 29How this connects: one transaction, several modulesThis closing lesson is for the tax manager. You will follow the links between corporate tax and the rest of ComplianceOS on the live screens: a payment to a director is caught by the Connected Persons list, one classification feeds both the VAT return and the corporate tax return, the return starts from the ledger profit and checks staff cost against payroll, and the Filing Tracker follows the return.8 min

How this connects to the rest of ComplianceOS

• VAT

  One classification gives each transaction its corporate tax category and its VAT treatment, so the VAT return and the corporate tax return are computed from the same list (lessons 6 and 29).

• Accounting and Financial Reports

  The return's reconciliation starts from the net profit of the posted journal entries and shows tax transactions that are not in the ledger on a separate line; the same two figures appear in the profit and loss report (lessons 17 and 26).

• Connected Persons and the transaction list

  A payment whose payee matches a name on the Connected Persons list is sent to the Review Queue with a connected person reason, and the excess over the market benchmark is disallowed in the return (lessons 5, 6, 17 and 29).

• Workforce

  The employee roster in CT Configuration is the Workforce roster, and the return's risk flags compare the staff cost claimed with the payroll register kept in Workforce (lessons 3, 17 and 29).

• Transfer pricing

  Related-party records feed the return's risk flags, the AI-drafted local file and the free zone arm's-length condition (lessons 8 to 10, 17, 25, 27 and 28).

• Withholding tax

  A confirmed foreign tax credit is taken off the corporate tax on its own line of the return (lessons 14 and 18).

• Filing Tracker and Evidence Vault

  Computing a return creates its deadline; File the return opens the return, and Submit and Lock by the approver completes the deadline, stores the acknowledgement and freezes the year (lessons 19 and 20).

• Access control and approvals

  Roles are held for an entity or the whole organisation, tax groups need an organisation-wide role, and filing a return is approved by someone other than its preparer (lessons 15, 18, 19 and 22).

• Free zone set-up

  A free zone licence, its qualifying activities and the substance assessment decide the Qualifying Free Zone Person status, shown the same on the Free Zones screen, in CT Config and on the filing page (lessons 22 to 25).