Stress-Free Tax Compliance with Taxready.ae - John Casey at WafeqNext Dubai 2025

WafeqNEXT 2025 unlocked the future of finance in Dubai. At this exclusive gathering, industry pioneers revealed how smart tools reshape tax and accounting for the UAE market. One of the most compelling sessions featured John, Managing Director of Tax Ready, in an open discussion with Maher Aoun, Sales and Partnership Manager at Wafeq, about the challenges and opportunities in corporate tax compliance, especially for small businesses. Here’s a deep dive into the key insights from their conversation.

Tax Ready is solving a Critical Gap.

When corporate tax was announced in early 2022, John spotted a glaring market need: thousands of small businesses lacked accounting knowledge, but needed to comply. Many tiny UAE companies had never understood fundamental terms like "financial year".

Tax Ready’s solution was radical simplicity. Tax Ready positioned itself as a stress-free, affordable compliance partner, handling filings so business owners could focus on growth. In less than two years, TaxReady has shifted from a hypothesis to 10,000+ clients, leveraging Virtue Zone’s existing network.

We knew small businesses needed help—not just software, but guidance. That’s where we stepped in.

Watch the full discussion here.

Educating Reluctant Business Owners on The Compliance Mindset

Not everyone embraced the new tax rules. John shared two types of business owners: the Proactive, who understood compliance was inevitable and sought solutions early. While the Resistant who ignored regulations until fines (like the AED 10,000 late registration penalty) forced action.

Education is critical in reshaping perceptions, as many business owners still mistakenly believe the UAE remains entirely 'tax-free' despite the introduction of corporate tax. To bridge this gap in understanding, strategic partnerships with free zones and compliance-focused firms like Tax Ready play a vital role by delivering authoritative guidance through trusted channels, they help build credibility while gently correcting misconceptions about the UAE's evolving tax environment.

How Wafeq Powers Tax Ready’s Success

The partnership between Tax Ready and Wafeq emerged from a critical need for localized, flexible accounting solutions in the UAE market. As John revealed, initial conversations with global accounting software providers proved frustrating, they failed to recognize the unique demands of the UAE’s small business sector. "They didn’t seem to acknowledge that this segment was going to be huge," John noted, contrasting this with Wafeq’s agile approach. What makes Wafeq indispensable for Tax Ready’s operations? Three key factors stand out:

• Seamless Onboarding Simplified for clients with zero accounting experience.
• Local Flexibility Unlike rigid international platforms, Wafeq adapted quickly to UAE-specific needs by refining features, like recent tax filing enhancements that slot directly into Tax Ready’s automation workflows.
• Automation Potential: Future integrations (like e-invoicing data) could further streamline tax exemptions for free zone businesses.

With Wafeq, we can scale compliance for thousands without drowning in manual work.

The Road Ahead: AI, Automation, and the End of Small Business Relief

As Tax Ready looks to the future, John outlined three pivotal challenges and opportunities shaping their strategy. The immediate focus is September’s corporate tax filings, with plans to scale existing campaigns to serve multiples of their current 10,000-client base. However, the real inflection point comes in 2027 when small business relief expires – a threshold that exempts businesses with under AED 3 million revenue from detailed tax computations– "That’s when our operating model fundamentally shifts," John noted, anticipating a surge in clients requiring full tax assessments.

While enthusiastic about technology’s potential, he voiced measured skepticism about AI hype: "Every vendor promises solutions for problems we don’t have. Our clients are too small for complex bank reconciliations." His vision for meaningful automation centers on smart segmentation, particularly leveraging e-invoicing data to categorize clients automatically.

Technology must solve tangible workflow bottlenecks rather than chase trends. We don’t need AI for AI’s sake, we need systems that answer one question: Does this client qualify for exemption?

As regulations evolve, this pragmatic approach positions Tax Ready to transform compliance from a reactive burden into a strategic advantage for UAE SMEs.