Cairo – Mubasher: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that Egypt will begin imposing the capital gains tax on bourse trades no later than its fiscal year 2017-2018.
The IMF’s mission chief for Egypt Chris Jarvis noted in a press briefing that Egypt has already implemented several harder steps as part of its agreement with the IMF for a $12 billion loan, including free floating the EGP-USD and applying the value-added tax (VAT).
On Wednesday, Capital Economics noted that the most populous Arab country’s economic growth is expected to reach 1% in 2016, compared to consensus of 3.5-4%.
“On the budget, the government proposed a package of measures which involved some increases in taxes through the implementation of value added tax which is a very modern efficient tax,” the statement showed.
The Egyptian government has also imposed some cuts in fuel subsidies, controls for the public sector wage bill, and to off-set some of the effects of that increases in social spending amounting to about 1% of GDP.
“The government is doing what it said it would do and the Central Bank is doing what it said it would do. I think that’s already showing some results,” Jarvis stated.
