Malé, Maldives – Spokesperson of the President’s Office Miuvan Mohamed has said that the tax changes will directly benefit the people of Maldives.
The government has introduced a bill to amend the law to increase GST and TGST from January next year. Amendment to increase the taxes was submitted by MP Mohammed Shifau on behalf of the government.
According to Shifau’s amendment, TGST will be increased from 12 per cent to 16 per cent and GST from 6 per cent to 8 per cent. The amendment was recently passed by a committee of the whole parliament.
Speaking on a local media program last night, Miuvan said tax revenue is a very important part of next year’s budget and that the tax increase is intended to raise the money needed to run the government’s planned programs.
“It’s not that tax money is not being taken and services are not being provided to the people. The budget plans to provide a lot of things to the people next year”, Miuvan explained.
Miuvan said the tax increase will directly benefit the people. The salaries of those who need to be increased will be increased and that continuous free degree programs will be assured and social and welfare programs will continue without any disruption, he said.
In addition, the proposed tax increases are relatively small and the additional expenditure will be relatively small, he said. He said the talk of tax increases is not an easy one and the talks made when the MDP government first tried to introduce the tax will not be forgotten for a long time.
