AMMAN – HE Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, founder
and chairman of Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Global (TAG.Global), called on the concerned
authorities to seriously consider appeals for sales tax reduction on all
electronic devices and their tools.
Representative of the Communications and
Information Technology (ICT) Sector at the Jordan Chamber of Commerce (JCC),
Eng. Haitham Al-Rawajbeh, has recently called for reducing the sales tax on
such devices to no more than 8 percent.
For his part, Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh supported
these requests, pointing out that the financial return on the business, the
economic and the education sectors as a result of the proposed reduction would
exceed many times the amount collected from high taxes. Higher taxes are known
to be counterproductive as they reduce sale and therefore reduce tax revenue,
he said.
Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh also indicated that this
step would positively contribute to accelerating the digital transformation
process, noting that sales tax cut would be directly proportional to prices,
and consequently, citizens will be more willing to purchase ICT products and
tools, hence the rise in demand would definitely boost national economy in
general, and the ICT sector in particular.
Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh stated that he has
previously called for taking prompt formal actions to encourage technological
and e-transformation, since the whole world is moving in this direction, adding
that we should keep abreast with this rapid transformation by cutting sales tax
as necessary measure.
It is worth mentioning that Al-Rawajbeh
had pointed out that the process of digital transformation in all relevant
fields, has become an urgent need and an inevitable reality that should be
addressed especially in light of the challenges imposed by the Coronavirus
(COVID-19) pandemic.
It should be noted that there are 3,000
active companies in the ICT sector in the Kingdom which employ a total number
of 45 thousand employees.