Federal Tax Authority passes ISO Certification audit for third consecutive year

The Federal Tax Authority (FTA) has succeeded in renewing the ISO 22301 Certification for Business Continuity for its business continuity system, after passing a specialised audit for the third consecutive year.

This accomplishment reinforces confidence in the Authority’s ongoing efforts to maintain the efficiency of its systems and its ability to face potential challenges, ensure business continuity, and manage crises in emergency situations.

The FTA stated that obtaining the ISO 22301 certification and renewing the international standard it has earned for its business continuity and disaster recovery system comes after experts from the official body managing the certification – executed a three-phased audit on the system, where they verified the accuracy of all related procedures. The Authority passed all three audits successfully.

FTA Director General His Excellency Khalid Ali Al Bustani said: “This new international standard is a notable addition to the extensive series of accreditations the Federal Tax Authority has earned in recent years, as part of our efforts to ensure continuity of all operating systems to the highest quality standards. This certification further enhances confidence in the Authority’s information technology system, which is continuously developed to enhance performance efficiency and ensure data protection and security, ultimately improving the FTA’s services and output across all sectors.”

“ISO certification standards play a leading role in our institutional development journey, serving to maintain excellence and allowing for the delivery of high-quality services to our customers, all the while enhancing operational risk management to ensure full compliance with all legislation, regulations, tax laws, and corporate governance requirements,” H.E. Al Bustani added, asserting that the FTA remains committed to international quality standards to strengthen collaboration with all internal and external stakeholders in the tax system, by establishing and upgrading communication channels to ensure their sustainable development.

The Authority noted that obtaining ISO 22301 certification for the renewal of its international standard for business continuity highlights its ability to identify potential risks, develop proactive plans to mitigate crises and disasters, efficiently manage and address risks, and recover from them while ensuring continuity of its core operations in emergency situations. This allows the FTA to swiftly restore its operating systems to normal, based on prior knowledge of the procedures to deal with emergency or crisis situations, and sets the stage for implementing a preventative approach to minimise the impact of any incident.