Balsam Hameed Today, Monday, Advisor to the Prime Minister for Financial Affairs, Mazhar Muhammad Saleh, announced the most prominent government steps in maximizing non-oil revenues, while indicating the imminent launch of new tax reform packages.
Saleh said, to the official agency followed by (Al-Oula News):
“One of the basic principles that came in the government’s approach to financial reform and which was approved by the House of Representatives in October 2022 is to maximize non-oil resources in the general budgets of the Republic of Iraq, for which goals were set.”
An amount in order for its contribution to the total revenues generated by non-oil economic activity to increase to 20 percent instead of its historical rates, which do not exceed 10 percent in the best cases.”
He added, “Diversifying sources of non-oil revenues and maximizing them in public budgets is one of the biggest reform challenges in the financial and economic fields in the country.”
He pointed out, “These challenges come from two main factors:
The first is the degree to which diversification of budget resources is linked to the success of diversification in the country’s gross domestic product, especially the three agricultural, industrial, and
service sectors.”
He stated, “The oil production sector still dominates a percentage of the components of that gross domestic product, which sometimes reaches 60 percent, which gives the national economy a rentier character and direct coexistence on the financial flows provided by the oil resource mostly alone.”
He added, “The second factor among these challenges is related to non-governmental activity in generating gross domestic product, and we specifically mean market activity or the private sector.”
He continued, “The majority of the economic forces that generate income and wealth within market activity carry out their economic activities within the framework of the so-called (shadow economy), which are (gray) markets that are irregular and not known to the regulatory, tax and banking bodies as is known, and their percentage amounts to about 70 percent.” Of the total private sector activity in the country.
He stressed that “gray or shadow markets are one of the most important basic factors causing the decline in non-oil revenues in the country’s general budget.”
He pointed out that “the first step taken by the current government in maximizing non-oil revenues began by adopting a new approach to tax reform,” noting that
“the Council of Ministers approved earlier this year 8 new packages to reform the tax system in the country, led by the principle of expanding tax bases.”
HHe stressed by saying: “Two tax reform packages have been launched, and the
rest of the packages will be launched sequentially and gradually
within the government’s reform policy in the financial field and maximizing the state’s resources from sources of income and wealth from outside the oil sector, as this is accompanied by
administrative and legislative reform and high-precision digital governance of tax institutions in areas of appreciation and collection with high transparency and efficiency.” https://www.awla.news/مستشار-رئيس-الوزراء-يعلن-قرب-إطلاق-حزم/