Tax package to go before the House on October 21

A DRAFT 2000 budget and a new taxation package will be submitted to the House plenum on October 21, Marcos Kyprianou, the new chairman of Parliament’s Finance Committee, announced yesterday.

He said he had learned of the date from Finance Minister Takis Klerides, but gave no further details.

The government has been trying for more than a year to get the House to approve a taxation package to replace one which deputies rejected in May last year. The new measures are believed to include a rise in Value Added Tax (VAT), possibly by up to four per cent, and new levies on second-hand car imports and mobile telephones.

Klerides has for months been engaged in a dialogue with the island’s political parties aimed at reaching a consensus on the package, said to be crucial to efforts to narrow a fiscal deficit which is set to reach six per cent of GDP by the end of the year.

There is no evidence to suggest that such a consensus is already in place.

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