AMMAN — Senate President Faisal Fayez on Saturday called for an income tax draft law that matches the expectations of economic and financial reform, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

 

The remark came during a discussion organised by Amman Group for Future Dialogues (AGFD) under the title “The tax law that we want” and attended by President of Amman Chamber of Industry Ziad Humsi, AGFD Chairman Belal Tal, and a number of experts in taxation and industry. 

 

The Senate president stressed that the law must contribute to increasing economic activities, stimulate growth and enhance the economy’s competitiveness, calling for cooperation between all relevant parties to reach a version of law that would be accepted by the majority. 

 

He noted that the meeting comes in line with His Majesty King Abdullah’s directives to conduct a comprehensive and responsible national dialogue on the law.

 

According to His Majesty’s directives, the law must be discussed with all bodies including the parliament (senators and deputies), civil society institutions, syndicates and political parties.

 

Fayez said that the King also called for a comprehensive revision of the taxation system and the tax burden in a way that avoids levying indirect consumption taxes that are unjust and do not take into consideration the different levels of individual income.

 

He pointed out that the dialogue must stem out of national responsibility and away from “any other purposes” as economic and social security is Jordan’s priority, which necessitates a modern, constitutional and just law.

 

Fayez added that the country’s economic policy in the coming phase will not solely depend on foreign aid, but will rather be based on self-reliance, which requires proper investment of resources, rationalisation of spending and focus on sustainable development projects that generate jobs. 

 

Therefore, the new law must encourage local and foreign investment through carefully-studied rates of tax on all sectors, he stressed.

 

For his part, Tal said that AGFD’s economic team has been tasked with studying the Kingdom’s economy and its challenges in order to propose solutions.

 

Attending experts demanded the continuation of the exemption of exports profits, the cancelation of taxation duality, the exclusion of transferred profits in trade and industry as they are capital profits, and maintaining the tax exemption limit for natural persons and families, whose maximum yearly income stands below JD28,000.