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Sunday, 28 October 2018

Gov’t signs agreement with banking sector to settle tax disputes

Gov’t signs agreement with banking sector to settle tax disputes: The government signed three agreements with the Federation of Egyptian Banks (FEB) that put to bed outstanding tax and taxation policy disputes going back years, according to AMAY. The first agreement sets out a new compromise framework, which will serve as the basis to settle stamp tax disputes with banks on a case by case basis, Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said. While he did not dive into the specifics of the disputes, previous reports dating back to 2015 had noted that banks are not happy with being forced to pay the stamp tax on assets seized from defaulters.

The second agreement lays the framework by which to settle corporate income tax disputes with banks, said Maait. A third agreement sees the government and Banque Misr, an FEB member, resolve a EGP 2 bn tax dispute dating back 25 years. A senior finance ministry official had told us back in July that the ministry is engaged with around 1,000 tax disputes with various banks over multiple taxation issues.

The issue got some airtime last night on Hona Al Asema (here, runtime: 24:19, here, runtime: 1:45, and here, runtime: 3:10)

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