Strategic Advisory
Forward-looking finance partnership for confident decisions across your business.
Why forward-looking advisory matters.
Reporting tells you what happened. Advisory tells you what to do about it.
Most owners run with no real budget and no rolling forecast. Decisions get made on instinct. Sometimes that works. Often it does not, and the cost only shows up in the numbers months later.
Corporate Tax made structure a live question rather than a formality. The first AED 375,000 of taxable income is taxed at 0 percent and everything above it at 9 percent. On AED 800,000 of taxable profit that is AED 38,250. How you take money out of the business, and through which entity, now changes the answer.
Founder compensation is where that shows up first. A salary is a deductible cost, but only at a defensible level. Pay yourself well above what the local market pays for the role and the FTA can disallow the excess. WPS and gratuity provisioning add roughly 10 percent of basic pay on top, which is real money that rarely makes it into the comparison.
We work as your part-time finance partner. Budgets that mean something, forecasts that update with reality, and decisions made with the financial picture in front of you rather than reconstructed afterwards.
The thresholds that shape the decision.
Structure questions in the UAE turn on a small number of specific lines. These are the ones that come up in almost every advisory conversation.
| Corporate Tax rate | 0 percent on the first AED 375,000 of taxable income, 9 percent above it |
|---|---|
| Worked example | AED 800,000 of taxable profit means AED 38,250 of Corporate Tax |
| Founder salary | Deductible at a defensible level. Pay above the local market rate for the role and the FTA can disallow the excess |
| WPS and gratuity | Roughly 10 percent of basic pay in effective annual cost |
| Related party transactions schedule | Required once related party transactions exceed AED 40 million in a tax period |
| Separate category disclosure | A single category above AED 4 million must be disclosed on its own |
| Master File | Required once revenue exceeds AED 200 million, unless every entity in the group is UAE resident |
What is included.
Senior finance judgement on the calls that matter most.
- Annual budget design and quarterly re-forecasting
- Rolling 12-month cash flow projection
- Multi-entity structure advisory
- Founder compensation modelling, salary against dividend
- Transfer pricing exposure review before the thresholds are crossed
- Pricing and margin analysis
- Hiring decisions with financial modelling
- Capital allocation guidance
- Direct strategic calls when decisions matter
How we run it.
Understand the business
How the money actually moves, which entities exist and why, and what you are trying to be in three years. Structure advice given without that context is guesswork with confidence.
Model the options
Salary against dividend, one entity against several, where profit should sit. Each route costed properly, including the parts that usually get left out like gratuity provisioning and the compliance load of an extra entity.
Build the plan
A budget with numbers you can be held to and a rolling 12-month forecast that updates as reality arrives. Not a document produced in January and never opened again.
Review every quarter
Forecast against actual, what moved, what it means for the rest of the year. Additional calls whenever a decision cannot wait for the next quarter.
Across four jurisdictions.
Structure questions rarely stop at the UAE border. Where a US LLC, a UK LTD or a Hong Kong Limited Company sits in the picture, we model the whole group rather than optimising one entity and creating a problem in another.
Common questions.
Is it better to take salary or dividends from a UAE company?
It depends on the numbers, and the comparison is usually done too simply. Salary is deductible against the 9 percent Corporate Tax that applies above AED 375,000, but only at a level the FTA would accept for that role, and WPS and gratuity add roughly 10 percent of basic pay in real cost. We model both routes on your actual figures rather than applying a rule of thumb.
When does a group need transfer pricing documentation?
The Related Party Transactions Schedule becomes required once related party transactions exceed AED 40 million in a tax period, and any single category above AED 4 million has to be disclosed separately. A Master File is required above AED 200 million of revenue, unless every entity in the group is UAE resident.
How much Corporate Tax would we actually pay?
The first AED 375,000 of taxable income is taxed at 0 percent and the remainder at 9 percent. On AED 800,000 of taxable profit that works out to AED 38,250. The number that matters is taxable income, not revenue, which is where structure and deductibility do their work.
Do you offer this as a one-off project or only ongoing?
Both. We run one-off projects (budget build, forecasting setup, scenario modelling) and ongoing partnerships.
How is this different from hiring a CFO?
We work as a fractional finance partner. Senior judgement on the calls that matter, without the full-time cost. For most growing businesses this is the right fit.
Can you help with fundraising preparation?
Yes. Financial model, projections, data room, investor questions. We have been through this before.
How often do we meet for strategic discussion?
Quarterly as standard. Additional calls when decisions need them.
