Taxing times: The government is working on a five-year strategy to comprehensively reform the tax code, said Deputy Finance Minister Amr El Monayer, according to Al Mal. The strategy, which will be announced soon, aims to increase Egypt’s tax intake to 18% of GDP from a current 13%, he added.

In the meantime: “We cannot on principle acknowledge the parallel market,” said El Monayer, who noted the suffering of companies calling for the full variance between the official and parallel market rate be counted as an FX expense, Al Borsa reports. He proposed temporarily counting part of that variance as unrealized liabilities until the crunch blows over, a proposal rejected by members of the Federation of Egyptian Industries, which attended a meeting yesterday with the Tax Authority to discuss the issue. Both parties have agreed to look into the problem, said the head of the FEI’s tax committee Mohamed El Bahy, AMAY reports.

On the value-added tax (VAT), El Monayer stated that legislative changes could be introduced to the VAT law at a later date, adding that the ministry will be willing to work with the House on that, according to AMAY. His statement were made to appease the FEI after the barrage of criticism lobbied against the act. Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for the executive regulations to for the VAT.

The Finance Ministry will also begin forming the committees tasked with settling tax disputes this week, El-Monayer said, according to Al Mal. Settlement forms will be available within days, as part of implementing the short-term Tax Disputes Settlement Act that was signed into law by President El Sisi in September.