Contesting a ZATCA Decision Before the Tax Dispute Committees: Deadlines, the Statement of Claim and Appeal

When the Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA) rejects your objection to an assessment, accepts it only in part, or lets the decision period lapse without answering, the road does not end there. The dispute moves out of the Authority and before an independent body: the Committees for the Resolution of Tax Violations and Disputes, administered by the General Secretariat of Zakat, Tax and Customs Committees (GSTC). This stage is governed by the Working Rules of the Zakat, Tax and Customs Committees, published in the Umm Al-Qura official gazette on 12/4/1445H (27 October 2023). Their time limits are short and unforgiving: miss one of them and the whole right to contest the assessment is lost.

An earlier article covered the objection stage before ZATCA itself and how to build the objection file. This one completes the picture: what happens after ZATCA rules on the objection, the three options open to the taxpayer, when ZATCA’s decision becomes immune from challenge, and how a claim is filed before the first-instance circuits and proceeds through to appeal — with the article number beside each rule.

First: the timeline from the assessment notice to a final decision

The table below summarises the statutory periods in the Working Rules. Under Article 46, periods run from the day after the event that triggers them, are computed on the Gregorian calendar with reference to the dates recorded in the GSTC electronic system, and if the last day falls on an official holiday the period extends to the first working day that follows.

Stage	Time limit	Article
Objection (grievance) to ZATCA against its decision	60 days from the day after notification of the decision	5
ZATCA decides the objection	90 days from filing	5
Request referral to the Internal Committee for settlement, or file a claim directly before the first-instance circuits	30 days from the day after notification of rejection or partial acceptance, or from the lapse of the 90 days without a decision	5
Claim before the first-instance circuits after settlement fails	30 days from notification of the Internal Committee’s decision or from the lapse of the settlement period	5
Curing deficiencies in the statement of claim	15 days from notification of the deficiency, failing which the claim is deemed not to have been filed	11
ZATCA’s reply to the claim	30 days from notification, extendable by a further 30 days on a reasoned request	14
Claimant’s rejoinder to ZATCA’s reply	10 days from notification of the reply	14
Circuit’s decision	30 days from the first hearing, extendable by 15 days	18
Filing an appeal	30 days from the day after receipt of the decision	34
Respondent’s reply, then appellant’s rejoinder	30 days extendable by 30 days, then 10 days for the rejoinder	35

Second: after ZATCA rules on the objection — three roads and no fourth

Article 5 gives the taxpayer, within thirty days from the day after notification of the rejection or partial acceptance of the objection — or from the lapse of ninety days without a decision — two express options, and a third implied one:

1. Request that the objection be referred to the Internal Committee for settlement. This is a committee inside ZATCA that negotiates with the taxpayer. If the taxpayer rejects its settlement decision, or the period fixed in the settlement rules passes without agreement, the taxpayer may contest ZATCA’s decision before the first-instance circuits within thirty days of notification of the Internal Committee’s decision or of the lapse of that period.
2. File a claim directly before the first-instance circuits, bypassing settlement.
3. Do nothing — in which case ZATCA’s decision becomes immune once the thirty days pass (Article 6), and the amount falls due with no further avenue of challenge.

Settlement is not a door that closes when the claim is filed. Article 8 allows the Internal Committee to negotiate with the taxpayer at any stage of the proceedings, and the start of negotiations suspends the case. The Internal Committee’s settlement decision is final and ends the case once the taxpayer accepts it in writing within the prescribed period. But whatever has been settled cannot later be contested before the circuits: a partial settlement removes its items from the dispute for good, which is why settlement offers should be read item by item rather than as a total.

Third: when does ZATCA’s decision become immune from challenge?

Article 6 sets out three situations in which ZATCA’s decision can no longer be contested before any body:

• the taxpayer did not object to ZATCA within sixty days from the day after notification of the decision;
• the taxpayer neither filed a claim before the first-instance circuits nor requested referral to the Internal Committee within thirty days from the day after notification of ZATCA’s decision on the objection, or from the lapse of ninety days after filing the objection without a decision;
• the taxpayer did not contest before the first-instance circuits within thirty days from the day after notification of the Internal Committee’s settlement decision, or from the lapse of the settlement period without agreement.

There is one exception: ZATCA’s decision is not immune if the competent circuit finds that it failed to meet the statutory requirements laid down in the zakat and tax laws and regulations. This is a narrow door and no substitute for keeping to the deadlines, but it deserves examination where an assessment was issued without its legal essentials — without proper notification, for instance, or without stating the basis on which it was built.

Fourth: does the claim suspend payment?

No. Article 7 provides that, in zakat and tax cases, the taxpayer’s claim does not affect the obligation to pay the amount legally due that is not in dispute. In practice, if the assessment contains items the business accepts and items it contests, the undisputed part remains payable on its due date and a pending case does not shield it. For customs duties and fixed customs penalties, collection is suspended only against a bank guarantee or cash deposit for the amounts claimed.

The objection file is therefore built on a clean separation of items: pay what is not in dispute and document the payment, and confine the claim to the disputed items with an amount stated for each. That itemisation is what will later be measured against the SAR 50,000 threshold that decides whether a decision can be appealed.

Fifth: the statement of claim — what it must contain and what voids it

The claim is filed through the GSTC electronic portal (the “Hiyad” platform). The service is free of charge according to ZATCA’s service guide, and the claimant receives an SMS and an e-mail with the case reference once filing is complete. Article 11 requires the statement of claim to contain:

• the claimant’s full name and ID number for a natural person; for a legal person, the articles of association, commercial registration number and the address of the head office or of the branch concerned;
• the tax identification number or distinctive number, where one exists;
• the number, date and outcome of the objection before ZATCA, and a copy of the decision being contested;
• the full name, ID number, residence and place of work of the attorney or legal representative;
• the means of contacting the claimant or the representative, including a mobile number;
• the subject of the claim, the claimant’s requests and the grounds relied on;
• the date of notification of the decision of ZATCA or of the Internal Committee, and its outcome.

Two rules defeat many claims on purely formal grounds. First: a single statement of claim may not combine more than one objection before ZATCA; a separate claim is registered for each. A business with a zakat assessment and a VAT assessment for the same year, issued as two decisions, has two claims, not one. Second: if the statement is deficient, the claimant must cure the deficiency within fifteen days of being notified of it, failing which the claim is deemed not to have been filed — and the original thirty-day window may well have closed in the meantime. The General Secretariat refers a claim to a circuit only after verifying that it is complete.

Notification takes legal effect when made by SMS or e-mail sent from the GSTC system to the mobile number or e-mail address entered in the claim, or through the national address or the address recorded in the commercial register (Article 12). Updating the contact details on the commercial register and the national address before filing is not an administrative footnote; it is what ensures that no deadline runs without the business knowing.

Sixth: how the case proceeds before the first-instance circuit

Proceedings are in writing as a rule (Article 15); the circuit may hear the parties in person or remotely, and a remote hearing has the same effect as one held in person. The General Secretariat notifies ZATCA of the claim to file its reply within thirty days, extendable by a further thirty on a reasoned request, after which the claimant may review the reply and respond to it within ten days (Article 14). The circuit decides the case within thirty days of the first hearing, extendable by fifteen days where the case requires it (Article 18).

Two procedural points bear directly on preparing the file. First, the language of the proceedings is Arabic: no memorandum or document is accepted in another language unless accompanied by a certified Arabic translation from a licensed office (Article 45), so foreign contracts, transfer-pricing reports and overseas bank statements need translation time that must be counted inside the thirty-day window. Second, representation before the circuits is governed by the Law of Advocacy and its implementing regulation (Article 10); the certified accountant’s role here is the technical file — reconciling the figures to the financial statements and the returns, and drafting the accounting memorandum that takes each assessed item apart and ties it to its supporting document and to the provision that governs it.

The ten-day rejoinder is where many cases are lost on substance rather than form. It is often the only time the taxpayer sees ZATCA’s arguments in writing before the hearing, and if the rejoinder is not lodged in time the case is studied and referred to the circuit without it.

Seventh: appeal — when a decision is final and when it can be appealed

Under Article 33, decisions of the first-instance circuits become final in three situations: where the amounts payable in the case do not exceed SAR 50,000; where the appeal period lapses without an appeal; or where the parties settle, or acknowledge a settlement, before the circuit. The practical consequence of the first situation matters: small disputes are decided at a single level, so everything the file can carry must go into the first-instance stage, because there is no second chance.

Otherwise, the appeal is filed within thirty days from the day after receipt of the decision, through the GSTC electronic system, stating the particulars of the decision appealed, the grounds of appeal and the appellant’s requests (Article 34); the fifteen-day rule for curing deficiencies applies here too. The respondent is notified to reply within thirty days, extendable by a further thirty, and the appellant may respond within ten days (Article 35). The respondent may also, before the end of the first hearing, lodge a cross-appeal that follows the main appeal and falls with it (Article 38) — meaning a taxpayer’s appeal can open the door to a counter-appeal by ZATCA against what the taxpayer won at first instance.

The appellate circuit hears the merits of the case, and confines itself to reviewing the record only in specific situations such as a decision dismissing the claim as inadmissible in form or for want of proper drafting (Article 37). If the first-instance decision is correct in its result, the appellate circuit upholds it and may add reasons of its own; if it overturns it, it decides the overturned points after hearing the parties. Where it overturns a decision declining jurisdiction, dismissing the claim in form, or ruling it time-barred, it returns the case to the first-instance circuit for a decision on the merits unless the case is ready for decision.

A circuit may declare its decision immediately enforceable, with or without security, where it judges that irreparable harm would otherwise occur (Article 32), and the appellate circuit may, on the appellant’s request, suspend that enforcement if it considers that the grounds of appeal may lead to reversal or that enforcement risks harm that cannot be undone (Article 36). Once a decision is final, one exceptional avenue remains: a petition for reconsideration before the same circuit that issued it (Articles 40 and 41).

Eighth: what actually decides the outcome

Most zakat and tax assessment cases turn on three axes. Documentary proof: is the contested item supported by documents that reconcile the return to the books and the audited financial statements? The applicable text: which regulation was in force for the year assessed — financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2024 are governed by the Implementing Regulation for Zakat Collection (1445H edition), earlier years by its predecessor. Procedural discipline: every deadline kept, a separate claim for each objection, and requests quantified item by item.

That is why we recommend that preparation of the claim file begin on the day the objection is lodged with ZATCA, not on the day it is rejected. Thirty days after a rejection is enough time to file a claim; it is not enough time to build, from nothing, a file of reconciliations, certified translations and a coherent accounting memorandum. A business that prepares for the examination before it is requested finds half of its claim file ready on the day it needs it.

Frequently asked questions

How we help

At Al-Mousa & Al-Tamimi Certified Public Accountants we handle the technical side of the dispute from the day the assessment notice arrives: analysing the assessed items and separating what should be paid from what should be contested, preparing the objection file and then the accounting memorandum for the claim with its reconciliations and Arabic documentation, evaluating settlement offers item by item, and working alongside the company’s legal representative to keep every deadline through to appeal.

See our zakat and tax service · Read next: objecting to a ZATCA assessment, step by step · The zakat return: deadline and documents · Contact us

Sources: Working Rules of the Zakat, Tax and Customs Committees — Umm Al-Qura official gazette, 12/4/1445H (Articles 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 18, 32 to 41, 45 and 46; Arabic); Submit Objection to the General Secretariat of Zakat, Tax and Customs Committees — ZATCA e-services; About the Committees — General Secretariat of Zakat, Tax and Customs Committees. This article is general guidance and is not a substitute for advice on a specific case.