The Tunisian Finance Law 2010 introduced several adjustments to the VAT law with
effect from 1 January 2010, including the following:
• A VAT taxable person may be entitled to an exemption from VAT on local purchases of material and equipment used for a contract outside of Tunisia provided that the amount of the contract is not less than 3 million Tunisian dinars. This provision applies regardless of the percentage of the exports of the annual total revenue of the taxable person.
• This exemption is subject to the approval of the tax department. Therefore, a VAT taxable person who wishes to benefit from this exemption must file an application with the Tunisian tax department and should attach a copy of the contract for the work to be performed outside Tunisia to the application. After obtaining the approval of the tax department for the VAT exemption, the taxable person must provide the tax department with documents that support the export of the local purchases outside Tunisia, within one month from the date of export.
• Companies that have financial statements audited by an external auditor (and that have been operating VAT for six successive declarations), may recover 50% (previously 35%) of the balance of the VAT overpaid in advance of a tax audit being carried out by the tax authorities. This VAT may be recovered within 60 days (previously 90 days) from the date of filing the request to the tax department.
