Truck drivers are trucking and pharmacies are open. Reem Leila reports on how two strikes were headed off simultaneously Taxing times for patients Pharmacists who began a strike this week in response to new tax regulations have suspended their action after talks with the government Owners of drugstores abandoned their two-day- old strike yesterday, saying they would await the outcome of talks between the Pharmacists' Syndicate and Ministry of Finance. Syndicate chair Mohamed Abdel-Maqsoud said the talks would "ensure a regular flow in tax dealings," telling a press conference that the tax authorities had agreed to "drop any retroactive element in the new tax regime". Finance Minister Youssef Boutros Ghali told Egyptian TV on Tuesday that the dispute had been dealt with in a positive way. On Monday, 95 per cent of Egypt's 45,000 private pharmacies closed their doors in response to the strike call by the Pharmacists' Syndicate to protest against the new tax regulations. The strike was agreed at an extraordinary general assembly of the Pharmacists' Syndicate on 13 February and was due to continue until Saturday. Government-run pharmacies were not included and remained open. In Cairo the strike started at 10am and ran until 6pm. In other governorates it was up to Pharmacists' Syndicate branches to decide the hours. The syndicate had said it may extend the strike beyond Saturday should the Tax Authority not cancel the new regulations which replace the seven per cent tax levied on pharmacies under an agreement reached in 2005 with a flat rate tax of 25 per cent. During the extraordinary general assembly pharmacists complained that they had received no advance notice of the changes before they were announced by Ashraf El-Arabi, chairman of the Tax Authority. Mohamed Abdel-Gawwad, deputy chairman to the Pharmacists' Syndicate, questioned the timing of the decision. "Under the current system pharmacists pay their taxes according to a set percentage of total income. The minister of finance decided to cancel this arrangement a month before the tax submission deadline." The new regulations will no longer be applied retroactively. Originally they were to cover the previous 12 months, with payment due on 31 March, and any pharmacists failing to file their tax returns could have been fined and, in some cases, jailed. The Pharmacists' Syndicate warned that the new regulations could see pharmacists "resort to illegal methods to avoid paying taxes". Abdel-Gawwad met with El-Arabi at the Tax Authority's head office in Heliopolis on Sunday. The five-minute meeting ended with El-Arabi rejecting pharmacists' demands that tax bills be assessed according to the 2005 agreement. The fixed tax agreement, El-Arabi argued, was illegal. "Every pharmacy should register all items sold. Pharmacists do not want to do this because they do not want us to know how much money they make. The only businesses exempt from this regulation are small and medium enterprises, SMEs, whose net profits do not exceed LE20,000 per year. Pharmacies are not SMEs and should not expect to be treated as such." El-Arabi went on to denounce any decision to extend the strike, criticising pharmacists for holding patients hostage. There was evidence of panic buying before the strike began on 16 February. A majority of pharmacists approached by Al-Ahram Weekly said they supported the strike and would be willing to escalate the action should the government fail to respond to their demands. Many also urged that the strike be expanded to include state-owned pharmacies. "I object to the fact that they cancelled the agreement without any prior consultation," said Sanaa El-Naggar, a striking pharmacist. "It would have been simple courtesy to inform us in advance that they planned to annul the agreement so that we could order our affairs before the new regulations came into force." Saturday is officially designated as Pharmacists' National Day and the strike, said Abdel-Gawwad, would have been "the best way to celebrate it". "Pharmacists are sending the government a message: that they are aware of what is happening and will fight for their rights." The Ministry of Health and Population announced contingency plans ahead of the strike. Kamal Sabra, deputy minister for pharmaceutical affairs, said during a press conference on 15 February that a limited number of pharmacies would remain open for reduced hours during the strike after a decree was issued by Minister of Health and Population Hatem El-Gabali. "Pharmacies in general hospitals, health insurance pharmacies and pharmacies owned by Al-Shirka Al-Masreya (the Egyptian company) will all remain open during the strike," said Sabra.
