At House hearing, business calls for “gradual” implementation of value-added tax. Representatives of over 50 companies spanning 14 sectors and 12 business associations called for a gradual implementation of the VAT during the House Planning and Budget Committee’s special hearing on the legislation yesterday. The industry reps have accepted the VAT in principle, but are skeptical of the Ismail government’s view that the impact on inflation will be minimal and so are pushing for the tax to be applied gradually, said House Economics Committee member Hisham Amara, who attended the hearings. The fear is particularly acute for the pharma industry, and representatives of the tourism sector have called for tourism to be exempt from the tax in view of the industry’s ongoing slump. The hearing also got into key objections from the Federation of Egyptian Industries and Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce, DNE reports, including reducing the baseline tax rate from 14% and scrapping the requirement that companies not be required to register to collect VAT until they have revenues of EGP 500k per year or more. Planning Committee Chair Hussein Eissa tells Al Mal that more hearings will be scheduled to hear all views out.

Did El Garhy promise the FEI a greater say on VAT legislation? Finance Minister Amr El Garhy promised to form a committee headed by Deputy Finance Minister Amr El Monayer to discuss with the FEI possible amendments to the act. The move came after a Monday meeting with the FEI leadership, Al Ahram reports. El Garhy apparently addressed the issue of the EGP 500K mandatory minimum not being inclusive by reminding attendees that separate legislation to tax SMEs is in the works. El Garhy promised FEI head Mohamed El Sewedy that the draft legislation will be sent to the federation this week to get their opinion.