Zakat and taxes in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Within the framework of Vision 2030, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia strives to achieve good national income through an effective tax system. This tax system in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia encompasses taxes that are inflicted by the government and zakat imposed by Islamic law. The tax and zakat system in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is supervised by the General Authority for Zakat and Income and operates under the authority of the Ministry of Finance, but the authorities responsible for looking into tax disputes still confront problems and difficulties during the performance of their work, especially in disputes related to sharia consulting. Since the importance of the tax and zakat fund in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is great and the relatively high imports it achieves, the aim of this research is to study the structure of the tax and zakat system and the mechanism of work of the bodies responsible for settling tax and zakat dispute by relying on literary reviews of previous researches and official publications allocated for the General Authority for Tax and Zakat, besides the laws correlated to the tax and zakat system in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The research concluded that there are a set of weaknesses in the mechanism of work of the authorities and committees who are responsible for deciphering tax and zakat disputes, and a set of proposals have been proposed to improve the performance of these committees.