Ministry of Finance resolved 450 tax disputes worth EGP 1.5bn

Forming committees to resolve disputes at the headquarters of FEI, FEDCOC, and Federation of Egyptian Banks

The Ministry of Finance announced that the committees responsible for resolving tax disputes have resolved more than 450 disputes between the Public Tax Authority and taxpayers according to the provisions of the Tax Dispute Resolution Law No. 79 of 2016, which led to settlement agreements for tax disputes and agreeing upon final taxes estimated at EGP 1.5 bn.
Deputy Finance Minister for Tax Policies, Amr El-Monayer, said that the committees formed by the Minister of Finance, Amr El-Garhy, three months ago are working intensively to quickly finish all the requests for tax dispute settlements.
The Tax Dispute Resolution Law allowed the committees for the first time to check all disputes with the tax community, whether the ones presented to the various judicial authorities or to the appeal, conciliation, or grievances committees.
He added that the committees are also handling the disputes concerning all kinds of taxes: commercial and industrial profits tax, income tax, payroll or sales tax, stamp tax, real estate wealth tax, and even disputes that may arise during the one-year validity period of the Value Added Tax Law.
He said that Ministry of Finance is also keen on resolving tax disputes quickly in order to stabilise financial and tax centres.
In terms of the details of the resolved tax disputes, he said that there are a number of disputes with major investment companies operating in the food industry sector, such as mills, as well as companies working in engineering and chemical industries, communications, tourism, electronics, the import and export field, and the public business sector.
He said that in order to ease things for the tax community, El-Garhy agreed on allowing some committees to resolve disputes within the Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI), the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce (FEDCOC), the Federation of Egyptian Banks, and the Egyptian Businessmen Association (EBA).
He pointed out that the minister's initiative emphasises the state's keenness on improving the investment climate and its readiness to take any action that supports it, especially since the committees are considered neutral and most of its members are not working in the public tax authority and each includes one judge from the civil judiciary or from the members of the State Council.
Fathy Shaaban, adviser to the Ministry of Finance, called the taxpayers who have disputes with the public tax authority and expressed his wishes to resolve them quickly, asking them to submit a request to the tax authorities in order to resolve the dispute before the expiration of the specified period on 25 September in order to be sent to the concerned committees.
Shaaban said that the Ministry of Finance is working on introducing the tax community to the benefits of the law by sending letters to a number of companies to understand the content of the law and the possibility of resolving any disputes between those companies and the public tax authority.