Egypt joined the first multilateral international convention to prevent tax evasion on a global level. The convention aims at reducing the erosion of the tax base by tackling international tax evasion, to ensure that each state receives its fair share of the taxes resulting from the transactions and economic activities across borders, said Amr Al-Monayer, the deputy minister of finance for tax policies, in a press statement on Saturday.
According to the statement, as the representative of the Egyptian authorities, Al-Monayer signed the convention at the headquarters of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris. Government officials and ministers of finance of 67 countries have signed the convention. Egypt and Kuwait were the only two Arab states to sign.
Al-Monayer added that the new agreement is an important step to modernise Egyptian financial policy to prevent double taxation. The convention will allow for the prevention of double taxation agreements that exist between the signatory states, in a step where all the amendments enter into force at the same time, which previously used to take decades of negotiations.
Egypt had been able to clear the signing of the convention in time, thanks to the efforts of the Finance Ministry’s working group headed by Mai Abu Ghali, the first assistant deputy minister of finance and tax policy, and through continued coordination with the OECD, which presented a plan of action to combat tax evasion that was adopted by the G20 during its meetings in September 2013.
Mai Abu Ghali explained that signing the convention is an important step within the international tax reform plan. She explained that it took a preparation team months to ensure keeping pace with modern concepts of the investment climate and the nature of investment in Egypt.
She said that a delegation from the organisation will visit Egypt after the Eid Al-Fitr holiday to study the needs of Egypt regarding the development of the private sector and the international tax. Expertise is required in this area.
