President Mohamed Morsy has decided to suspend wide-ranging changes to the country's tax laws that had been signed earlier this week but just came to light Sunday, calling for "societal dialogue" and expert consultation on the tax amendments before their implementation. In an announcement early Monday morning, Morsy said the taxes would constitute an "additional burden" on the average citizen. "The president of the republic feels the pulse of the Egyptian street, and he realizes how much the citizen is bearing and struggling from his burdens in this difficult economic period," the statement said, according to the website of the state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram. The statement also said the president had found that the laws would mean a large increase in the cost of living for most citizens, and said he would carry out a societal dialogue and consult specialized experts until the plan is agreeable to the public, and only then would the tax raises be implemented. "The voice of the people is always louder and always has the last word," the statement said. The tax plan, signed into effect unceremoniously on 6 December, was not made known to the public until Sunday. The extensive changes were meant to have increases in the tax on cigarettes, soft drinks, alcohol, cooking oil and energy. They also would have levied new licensing taxes and property taxes, and increased the tax rate for higher-income brackets. Officials had said the tax plan was part of the economic program Egypt set before the International Monetary Fund during its visit to Cairo in early November to obtain a US$4.8 billion loan from the fund. IMF officials are set to finalize the loan agreement on 19 December in Washington DC.
