President Sisi's decision to replace multiple fees with a unified tax eases the burden on investors

The Egyptian Association of tax experts confirmed that the decision of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to replace the fees imposed by various government agencies and bodies with a unified additional tax from net profits represents a radical shift in economic policies and leads to improving the investment climate, enhancing transparency and Tax Justice, easing the burdens on investors and opening the way for more local and foreign investments.

Tax accountant Ashraf Abdel Ghany, founder of the Egyptian tax experts Association, said that the presidential directive on the unified tax achieves many advantages, the first of which is that calculating the tax on the basis of net profits and not revenues, and previously linking taxes to revenues led to a reduction in the profits of investors, especially for small and medium-sized companies, adding that multiple fees were also a burden on companies, not limited to high fees, but in their frequency, and the multiplicity of collectors, which confuses market calculations, so the existence of a unified tax will lead to legislative stability and clarity in financial transactions with government agencies and bodies.

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Abdul Ghani stressed that one of the obstacles facing any new investor was the lack of clarity of the real costs of establishing and operating projects, as he was exposed to sudden fees that interfere with the feasibility study, and profits turned into losses, and the confusing multiplicity of fees negatively affected the decisions to expand and inject new investments, pointing out that some sectors were paying between 10 to 15 types of fees other than general taxes, which makes the total burden exceed 35% of revenue, which is an obstacle to any project, adding that the presidential directive also supports the government in identifying resources when setting the general budget to the state, and therefore to employ it optimally to achieve sustainable development, calling for a dialogue It also requires careful studies for each sector separately, for example, in the iron and steel sector, the investor pays 500 million pounds to obtain a license, and in the pharmaceutical sector, the investor pays about 100 thousand pounds to register one drug file.

For his part, Dr. Ashraf Hajar, deputy chairman of the finance and Taxes Committee of the Egyptian Lebanese businessmen Association, supervised that there are presidential directives to the government on the need to create a business climate, attract more local and foreign investments, and work to reduce the administrative and financial burdens of companies, and these directives included replacing the fees charged by various investors with a unified additional tax of net profit, which reflects the state's interest in investors, and work to reduce the administrative and financial burdens of companies, but it is necessary to take into account the follow-up of government agencies in applying the president's directives so that the facilities do not turn into burdens on companies, as the fear that government agencies By continuing to apply government fees, while the IRS applies an additional tax, which leads to investors incurring additional burdens.

Ashraf Hajar added that the directives included the unification of the collection entity, as multiple entities collecting fees wastes time, and exposes companies to pay multiple fees for one service that could have been paid once, he said that the economic entities platform was launched, which means launching a unified digital platform aimed at collecting and unifying the data of companies and economic institutions in one place, within the framework of the state's trend towards digital transformation and enhancing transparency and economic governance, in addition, the customs release time was reduced from 8 to 6 days, which helps reduce storage costs and Customs expenses, which is reflected in reducing the costs of goods imported, with the possibility of payment of duties He added that all these directives contribute to stimulating local and foreign investors and companies to invest, increase production, which creates an increase in production and reduce unemployment rates, and take advantage of the surrounding global changes to attract foreign investors, and encourage them in manufacturing and investment in Egypt

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