Income tax bill will be submitted to parliament during ongoing session: Speaker

Parliament Speaker, former President Mohamed Nasheed has assured that the Income Tax Bill will be submitted to parliament before the current sessions ends.

He said this while speaking at a ceremony held to mark Maldives Inland Revenue Authority (MIRA)’s ninth anniversary, on Friday night.

While MIRA was established during his administration in 2010, the former president recalled that it first imposed a Tourism Goods and Services Tax in January 2011 -this was replaced by The Goods and Services Act in October- which led to the introduction of the Business Profit Tax Act in July that year.

Nasheed added that his administration was “toppled” before it was able to introduce the Income Tax Bill, and emphasized that they “are back” to do this.

Furthermore, he said that the previous administrations had failed to introduce this “due to certain influences,” and revealed that he had faced the same during his administration as well.

Introducing an income tax is one of incumbent President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s campaign pledges, he said that “a progressive income tax is necessary to bridge the gap between rich and poor and to complete the taxation system introduced by the MDP [Maldivian Democratic Party] government.”

President Solih has also assured that the bill will be submitted to parliament this year, and that it will come into effect in 2020.

While this bill was also one of the most important pledges made by main ruling MDP during this year’s parliamentary elections, Nasheed had announced that income tax “will apply to people who earn a monthly income of MVR 60,000 and above after deduction of monthly expenses, at the rate of MVR 0.03 per MVR 1.”

President Solih’s administration plans to submit a total of 201 motions to parliament, which is to be fanned out throughout his five-year tenure.