Egypt's president announces planned shift to VAT regime
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi says his government is planning to move toward a value-added tax regime as part of a series of major economic reforms.
In an opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal, he says the value-added tax regime, along with a simplified tax system for small and medium-sized enterprises, will "raise revenues and bolster investment incentives by boosting growth, creating jobs and improving firms' cash flow."
Egypt has launched mega-projects and taken tough measures, including slashing fuel subsidies and amending the property tax law, in a bid to revive the economy following the turmoil unleashed by the 2011 uprising.
El-Sissi says the government has been "willing to forge ahead with the long-overdue and contentious reforms that prior governments had known were necessary but did not carry out."
