Dubai public prosecution will no longer keep passports

The Dubai Public Prosecution will no longer be keeping any passports of residents or visitors who have been charged with a crime or need a bail. The data of the person instead will be stored electronically.

If the person needs bail, they will no longer require a friend or relative to keep their passport on their behalf.

The 'Smart Bail' initiative has been announced at the Dubai Government Excellence Programme on April 9.

Ali Humaid Al Khatim, Advocate General and Chief Prosecutor of Immigration at the Public Prosecution, told that the move is to ensure they eliminate the method of holding passports.

Last year, and almost every year, we held 50,000 passports and we want to reduce this. The resident or visitor will have all of their data saved in our system all over the UAE so we will not need their passport," he said.

"This will also give the person ease because he can get his visa renewed or anything related to the passport because he will have the important document with him."

No plans to enforce minimum wage policy in UAE

The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation stressed that the government has no plans to implement a minimum wage policy in the UAE.

In a statement, the ministry said that wages, including for domestic workers, will continue to be fixed through negotiation between employer and employee. “The UAE’s wage policies enable a flexible labour market that creates thousands of new jobs annually,” it said.

“The government remains of the view that a free labour market, based on supply and demand, creates the optimal conditions, under which we are able to continue to welcome thousands of guest workers to the UAE every year, while simultaneously fostering sustainable economic growth.”

The ministry has nothing to do with any statements about fixing minimum wages for domestic workers, it added.

Domestic workers

The UAE has recently taken steps to increase protection of domestic workers. On September 26, 2017, President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan issued Federal Law No 10 of 2017 regulating the contractual relationship between employers and domestic workers. It provides legal protections to safeguard the rights of all parties involved.

Some foreign embassies in the UAE have announced their governments’ decision to impose certain pre-conditions, including minimum wages, for recruitment and retention of their workers in the UAE.

Although such conditions are not legally valid in the UAE, the foreign countries implement them by denying permission to new workers to leave the country. Embassies also refuse to attest renewed job contracts of existing workers in the UAE.

A foreign embassy recently said it would not attest the job contract of housemaids working in the UAE if the contract does not meet its new criteria, which include increased minimum wages based on the maid’s years of experience.

The embassy’s attestation is not a mandatory requirement under the UAE laws to renew a maid’s job contract and employers are free to renew it. However, when a maid goes back home, emigration authorities will not permit her to leave the country if her job contract is not attested by the embassy.

UAE suspended new rules for Good-conduct Certificates

The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation said the change was effective from Sunday, April 1.

 The rule was introduced on February 4 and meant anyone moving to the UAE had to present a police document from their home nation demonstrating they had no criminal history or convictions.

That document had to cover the past five years. It was suggested that the checks would eventually be extended to anyone moving between jobs in the UAE as well.

The Ministry said on Twitter that "the good conduct certificate is postponed from the first of April until further notice", without elaborating. The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE) issued a circular in this regard to all Tasheel centres processing work permits and employment visas by Sunday noon.

“We would like to inform you of the decision of the Cabinet No. 20 (4) of 2018 of Session No. 4, which temporarily suspends the Cabinet decision (Ministerial Resolution) No. 1/8 of 2017 of Session No. 8 regarding the addition of the requirement to obtain a certificate of good conduct for expatriate workers who wish to obtain a work visa in the country, starting from 1 April 2018,” read the English translation of the Arabic circular.

Embassies have described being inundated with requests from their citizens and said they have struggled to understand the ins and outs of the new rules; some countries appear to have faced more problems than others.

Read more:

• New security checks for UAE expats come into effect from 4th Feb 2018
• Skilled workers can enter multiple employer contract in the UAE

How to verify Your UAE visa Validity

The UAE Government offers online and offline facilities to check your resident visa validity and track your visa application with very simple steps. Generally, the validity of visa is two years. Visa is renewed subject to conditions similar to those of fresh visas.

How to verify your resident visa validity online:

Just visit https://echannels.moi.gov.ae/echannels/web/client/default.html#/fileValidity

Add your resident visa Unified number or passport number and click.

Then you will get your visa validity

Reclaim tax paid before VAT registration in UAE

Article 56 of the Decree Law allows the recovery of input tax paid on goods, services and imported goods prior to the date of VAT registration, “provided that these goods and services were used to make supplies that give the right to input tax recovery upon tax registration”.

Input VAT is the VAT charged by your suppliers on goods and services purchased. This means you can only recover VAT paid before registration if VAT charged on the same goods and services post registration would be recoverable. You should understand the exclusions to input tax recovery contained in the full decree law and executive regulations and apply the same rules that apply to input VAT recovery generally when determining how much pre-registration input VAT can be offset.

There are four exceptions to this rule listed in the decree law.

• The first is receipt of goods and services for purposes other than making taxable supplies.
• The second is for input tax related to capital assets that are already partially depreciated before the date of registration, for example, if you purchase a fixed asset with an expected life of five years and when you register for VAT the asset has only two years of use left, you can only reclaim two fifths of the VAT you originally paid.
•  The third exception is for services received more than five years prior to the date of registration.
• Cant reclaim input tax paid if you have moved goods to another implementing GCC state prior to the registration in that state. This is because if you supply goods to another GCC state then the recovery of input tax is permitted only in that other state. Therefore, to recover input VAT you need to be registered in that other GCC state.