CoreTax Arabia delivers robust, technology-enabled tax compliance with Alphatax Corporate Tax

CoreTax Arabia is founded by Neil Allmark, a tax expert with over 20 years’ Big4 tax experience and 5 years’ in-house tax experience, as number two to the Global Head of Tax of a large MNE Group. With the introduction of Federal Corporate Tax in the UAE from June 2023, Neil identified a clear market need: to provide more practical and operational-focused tax advice, backed up by strong technical expertise, and including tax accounting and tax compliance expertise, and in-house insights, as businesses navigate the maturing Corporate Tax Law in the UAE. 

CoreTax Arabia offers tax advice that is both technically robust as well as easy to action and to implement. Drawing on Neil’s deep expertise, the firm sees its strongest role in being an extension of the in-house tax function, providing tailored, actionable tax support, to clients ranging from small and medium-sized businesses, including OMBs and their owners, to larger government-linked MNE Groups. 

Neil understands the real importance of robust tax compliance and tax provisioning, and considered it critical, to any tax compliance service offering, to have a technology-enabled and process-based tax compliance platform in place, before going ‘to market’ with tax compliance support for his clients. It was against this backdrop that CoreTax Arabia adopted Alphatax Corporate Tax, the market-leading tax compliance engine from Alphatax, to be the foundation for their tax accounting and tax return preparation services, to be able provide fast, transparent, client-friendly and high-quality UAE corporate tax reporting. 

Tax team & role

CoreTax Arabia is led by Neil Allmark and supported by a network of independent tax specialists. This flexible model allows the firm to scale its resources depending on project requirements, while retaining a hands-on approach and Partner-led delivery for each client. Alphatax Corporate Tax plays a key role in delivering efficient, accurate compliance outputs – whether through full preparation of tax return filings or client–assisted computations. 

Customer priorities

Client service-offering priorities for CoreTax Arabia: 

• Clear and relevant process and working papers – based on financial statements data that is familiar to the client, and developed into intuitive and client-friendly tax computation workings. In particular, the Alphatax Corporate Tax computations file shows clear, traceable tax adjustments that are supported by simple review notes (at the preparation stage) and relevant technical footnotes (for permanent reference purposes). Alphatax Corporate Tax also provides a corresponding replica Tax Return in the required EmaraTax format.  

• Transparent version control and auditable tax working files, and easy roll-over to future tax periods 

• The ability to respond quickly to evolving compliance requirements and changes in filing templates 

• A technology partner who takes care of detailed compliance requirements while CoreTax Arabia can take care of more complex tax planning and tax analysis matters. 

Alphatax Corporate Tax directly supports these needs by offering automation, consistency, technical updates, UI and UX, and clarity in tax return preparation—features that are integral to client trust and clarity around deliverable. 

Alphatax products used

Alphatax Corporate Tax – Used by CoreTax Arabia to prepare UAE Corporate Tax computations and EmaraTax Tax Return filings. The platform automates simple and complex tax adjustments, and allows for efficient financial data upload and tracing of that financial data through to intermediary tax computation file. This provides a strong audit trail, and accommodates client-friendly review notes (for easy clearance of review question) and technical footnotes (for technical and fact-based comments regarding the tax treatment applied against any particular business circumstances or any particular transaction). 

Collectively, this enables Neil and his team to focus on high-value tax advisory aspects of the tax provision or tax return preparation process, and to focus on easy, targeted resolution of tax return preparation and review queries, and issue-spotting for future tax planning and/or tax risk management opportunities.  

Previous process & challenges

Before implementing Alphatax Corporate Tax, CoreTax Arabia prepared tax provisions and using MS Excel.  

Building and testing the necessary spreadsheets was time-consuming and prone to human errors in drafting calculation formulae and processing data uploads – especially when scaling across different clients and industries, across new or complex transaction scenarios, or rapidly-changing financial data.  

Moreover, producing audit-ready documentation in MS Excel proved to be cumbersome, limiting the firm’s ability to deliver the polished outputs expected by sophisticated, tax-aware clients. 

Onboarding & support

CoreTax Arabia found the setup and support experience with Alphatax to be responsive and proactive.  

The on-boarding and implementation came after several months of engagement and use-case evaluation, and readiness-assessment while early tax provisioning was completed within MS Excel. Throughout this period, the Alphatax team remained engaged and supportive, and the ultimate on-boarding and systems training, delivered by the Alphatax technical team, ensured a smooth on-boarding process. 

“Once you know how the software works, it’s incredibly simple and efficient.  

And if you don’t know, support is readily available to guide you through the correct steps. It’s easy to ‘click and select’ the appropriate tax adjustments, and those adjustments are then automatically posted to all of the relevant places of the tax computation and tax return. My advice would always be to check-in regularly with the technical team – who are always on-hand, and respond on a timely basis – to make sure adjustments are posted correctly, and that the accuracy and integrity of the tax calculations is maintained.”  

Key improvements & outcomes

Through the adoption of Alphatax Corporate Tax, CoreTax Arabia has been able to offer tax compliance and tax return filing services to its clients with the highest levels of internal efficiency and client delivery standards. 

• Speed: Computations that took days to prepare in MS Excel, and with inherent calculation risk and human error risk, can now be produced accurately within approx. two – four hours using Alphatax Corporate Tax. 

• Accuracy: An automated calculation platform, which reduces the risk of human error and formulaic error, and calculation inconsistencies. 

• Transparency: Clients benefit from clear, itemised calculations – through tax computation file – with embedded audit trails, review notes and technical and fact-based footnotes. 

• Professionalism: Deliverables now include robust documentation that align with regulatory expectations and can be used for internal audit or external review. 

• Continuity: With Alphatax Corporate Tax, CoreTax Arabia can roll forward prior-year data, creating a consistent compliance foundation – and book-to-tax process – for year-on-year tax reporting. 

“The structure and transparency of the platform – through the availability of the tax computation, the functionality around client review notes and tax technical footnotes, and a compliance-ready replica Tax Return – means that Alphatax Corporate Tax is a robust base for our client’s long-term tax compliance requirements.”  

What’s next

With Alphatax Corporate Tax now fully integrated into their tax compliance service delivery, CoreTax Arabia is focusing on helping clients optimise their tax provisioning and tax compliance processes, for current tax filings, as well as being able to target specific, future tax planning.  

Neil is encouraging clients to align their tax accounting processes with their return preparation cycle, through the use of Alphatax Corporate Tax, to minimising duplication of tax calculation work, and to improving overall tax controls. 

Future initiatives are expected to include: 

• Educating clients on the benefits of preparing year-end tax provisions directly in Alphatax Corporate Tax, to roll-forward those year-end tax provisions directly into the Tax Return preparation 

• Offering flexible engagement models where clients can choose levels of involvement -either for lower-level assistance with preparation, or full-scope assistance with preparation and filing 

• Using the Alphatax Corporate Tax group reporting features to offer tax provisioning for group accounts consolidation 

Why they recommend Alphatax Corporate Tax?

“Implementing Alphatax Corporate Tax has allowed us to harness global best practice in terms of tax reporting and tax compliance, and to apply this in a local context, to a new, maturing Corporate Tax Law in the UAE – to free up time, and allow us provide clients with more value-add tax advisory guidance, at the same time as providing efficient and accurate tax filings, built on a technology-enabled, Alphatax tax compliance platform.”

Key takeaways

Through adoption of the Alphatax Corporate Tax compliance software, CoreTax Arabia demonstrates how a dynamic and agile tax advisory and tax compliance firm can elevate its service delivery, through smart technology.  

The results have been clear: 

• Faster preparation cycles – Compliance delivery has become faster, more consistent, more robust and accurate, less dependent on manual effort, and less prone to human input or processing error. 

• Higher client confidence – Clients now receive user-friendly, draft tax computation files, for review and traceable feedback, and final tax computation files, with footnotes and clear calculation logic. 

• Enhanced advisory value – With these basic tasks automated, CoreTax Arabia can focus on more strategic tax advisory input, detailed tax analysis of reliefs or exemptions, and tailored tax planning or tax risk mitigation recommendations. 

• Scalability – The firm can on-board and service more clients, quickly, and without re-inventing tax reporting structures, or client-specific or industry-specific tax compliance requirements. 

• Trusted partnership – The support from Alphatax has been instrumental in ensuring a smooth and confident rollout, and garnering trust in on-going tax technical and technology-based support. 

By combining their deep technical know-how with robust tax reporting and tax compliance software, CoreTax Arabia is setting a new standard for UAE tax advisory and tax compliance services – one rooted in clarity, pragmatism, useability and professionalism.