Taxes, expats real estate in new vision
Funds added to clear expat indemnities
KUWAIT CITY, Oct 13: The governmental draft plan, which has been placed on the Cabinet’s table, calls for the adoption of attractive housing policies for real-estate development, and stresses the importance of enabling foreigners to fully own real-estate assets but with the imposition of necessary taxes, reports Al-Qabas daily.
The draft plan demanded the adoption of mortgage law and real estate developers as a step towards overcoming the challenges of real-estate financing and participating in the development of housing projects.
It also highlights the need to develop a new mechanism for distributing land, and replace the value-added distribution systems with the lottery system for effective utilization.
The plan suggested setting a minimum for the cost of overseas treatments in case of emergency, as decided by the concerned authorities, and reconsidering the scholarship policies to be limited to scientific and technical disciplines related to labor market policies (based on the project to harmonize education with the labor market).
It stressed the importance of merging and reducing government agencies with similar specializations, in addition to adopting contemporary models for shifting from the scope of ministries to committees (based on the project to restructure the government system).
The plan also called for the development of the concept of government work in order to achieve the requirements of a graceful government and reduce government expenditures on administrative, operational and maintenance matters, including the transformation of ministries into committees and the adoption of digital platforms affiliated with each government agency (based on the Digital Transformation Project).
The plan, under the title of “developing financial policies for the repricing of goods, services and public assets in order to achieve fairness in distribution and consumption”, demanded the following:1. The need to impose a new tax and increase the excise tax on luxury goods that have an impact on the environment and public health (based on the excise tax study project).
2. Reconsider the price policies for all public services and goods, as well as for public assets and properties (based on the public services repricing project).
3. Rationalize and direct subsidies in more sustainable and effective ways (based on Social Safety Net Project).
4. Amend Article 12 of Law No. 19/2000 for imposing a tax of 2.5 percent of the annual net profits on the listed Kuwaiti companies to finance the purposes of the law.
5. Change the budget structure from a cost budget to a program and performance budget.
Furthermore, the plan stressed the need to strengthen economic policies that attract investments in the sectors of productivity and digital technology, through the following:1. Building economic projects through the exploitation of oil derivatives, which enhances the diversification of commercial and employment opportunities.
2. Reconsidering the mechanism of financing small and medium enterprises in order to achieve the principle of effective financing efficiency (based on the project of converting the fund into a bank).
3. Establishment of border logistics areas through partnership.
4. Approval of industrial and agricultural developers to overcome the obstacles of financing and investment, and to participate in the development of industrial and agricultural security.
5. Approval of commercial and digital developers to diversify investment opportunities within the commercial and digital fields.
In another development, the Civil Service Commission (CSC) recently received financial reinforcement for the payment of end-of-service benefits to expatriate employees whose services in government agencies have been terminated, reports Al-Rai daily quoting sources from the CSC.
“The CSC disbursed the endof-sevice dues immediately after receiving the financial reinforcement. The Ministry of Finance fully cooperated with the CSC to expedite the disbursement of endof-service benefits to the employees who completed procedures related to their entitlements,” sources affirmed.