The emergency general assembly of the pharmacists' syndicate yesterday decided to close the pharmacies in all the provinces as of next Monday to protest against the Tax Department decision not to tax them on the basis that they are small businesses, as was the case before. The pharmacists vowed retaliatory action, if the Tax Department does not backtrack on the decision. But they said certain pharmacies will not close for the sake of the people. The general assembly said it will be in permanent session until the problem is resolved, threatening of an open-ended sit-in in Tahrir Square. The emergency assembly that was attended by thousands of pharmacists also asked the pharmaceutical companies to recover their stocks of medicines from the pharmacies, and called on the pharmacists not to buy more medicines. Under-Secretary Mahmoud Abdel Gawad said he failed to reach a solution with the head of the Tax Department, who told him that he came to fix the taxes. Gawad added: “A delegation of pharmacists met with Minister of Finance Dr. Youssef Boutros Ghali, who refused to change the decision and defied that the syndicate would not be able to persuade more than 10 pharmacists to attend the assembly.”
