Kuwait's Assembly committee says taxes not a priority issue

KUWAIT - The National Assembly committee responsible for setting priorities for the Assembly yesterday said it has not placed a government-sponsored draft law for imposing taxes among its priority issues. Head of the committee MP Ahmad Al-Fadhl said the committee believes that the draft law on taxation, part of the Gulf unified taxation system, shouldn’t be placed on the committee’s agenda.

The government wants to impose the five percent value-added tax (VAT) as part of the GCC framework agreement. Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates have already started imposing the tax from the start of this year. A majority of lawmakers oppose any form of austerity measures that the government wants to impose to raise non-oil revenues to finance the budget deficit resulting from low oil prices.