VAT and MRA returns

How Qontab tracks VAT at 15%, prepares the VAT return and the MRA remittance, and keeps corporate income tax in view.

What VAT and MRA returns are

In Mauritius, a registered business charges VAT at 15% on its sales, reclaims the VAT it paid on its purchases, and periodically settles the difference with the Mauritius Revenue Authority (MRA). If you run payroll, you also remit the PAYE you withheld from employees plus the social contributions (CSG and NSF). Qontab turns the entries already sitting in your books into two ready-to-use summaries — a VAT return and an MRA remittance — so you can file with confidence instead of rebuilding the numbers in a spreadsheet.

These reports help you prepare the figures; they are not the official filing, and nothing here is tax advice. Always reconcile against your records and the MRA’s own forms before you submit.

The VAT return

The VAT return answers one question: how much VAT do you owe — or are you owed — for a period? Qontab builds it from your posted invoices, grouping every invoice line by its tax rate, and adds the VAT recorded on expenses and journal entries.

• Output VAT — the VAT you collected on sales invoices, totalled per rate.
• Input VAT — the VAT you paid on purchases, which you can reclaim.
• Net VAT payable = output VAT − input VAT. When input VAT is larger, Qontab marks the period as a refund rather than an amount due.
• Manual adjustments — VAT recorded outside invoices (on expenses, income or journal entries) is added as a single line. It is not split by rate, and its net amount is not part of the taxable totals.

Credit notes reverse the sign of their parent invoice, so a refund issued to a customer correctly reduces your output VAT. The return defaults to the current quarter — the usual Mauritian VAT period — and you can set any date range you need. Import VAT and reverse-charge VAT are not handled yet: add them yourself when you file. Invoice lines are also added in each invoice’s own currency, so if you invoice in more than one currency, convert the foreign-currency invoices by hand.

The MRA remittance

If you employ staff, the MRA remittance report summarises what you owe the authority from payroll across three statutory liability accounts:

• PAYE (account 2130) — income tax withheld from employees.
• CSG (account 2140) — the Contribution Sociale Généralisée, employee and employer shares.
• NSF (account 2330) — the National Savings Fund.

For each account the report shows the opening balance still owed, what accrued in the period, what you already remitted, and the closing amount still to pay. It reads directly from the general ledger, so it stays in step with your Mauritian payroll runs.

Corporate income tax

Mauritius corporate income tax (CIT) runs at 15%, on a fiscal year that defaults to July → June. Qontab keeps CIT in view by computing a taxable profit from your posted entries: book profit, adjusted for non-deductible expenses, depreciation add-backs and capital allowances, then taxed at 15%.

One subtlety worth knowing: historical reversal entries (left by the correction method used before entries were edited in place) are excluded from the taxable-profit computation, so a transaction that was later corrected is never counted twice. You see the same revenue and expense totals on your financial reports.

How tax rates work

15% is not a hard-coded constant. Each company has its own list of tax rates, and each invoice line points at one of them. The VAT return groups its totals by exactly those rates, highest rate first. A 0% rate is treated the same way whether it is called zero-rated or exempt: the return does not yet keep exempt supplies out of the taxable totals. The VAT account codes themselves are resolved per company, so a customised chart of accounts still maps cleanly to the return.

You cannot yet add or change tax rates yourself — not in the app, the API or the AI connector — and a new company starts without any. Until a rate is set up, invoice lines can only be marked No tax and the transaction form does not offer VAT.

With AI (MCP)

Connected to an AI assistant through the Qontab MCP connector, you can pull tax figures in plain language. The assistant calls list_tax_rates to confirm which rates are in use,get_profit_loss to read the revenue and expenses that drive both VAT and CIT, and get_balance_sheet to see the outstanding VAT and MRA liabilities you still owe.

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