A file photo of Egypt's finance minister Mohamed Maait (Photo: Al-Ahram)
Egypt is set to provide Saudi Arabia with required technical support and experience in the area of advancing its tax system, especially in respect to deploying an electronic bill (e-bill) system, thereby enhancing collaboration with Saudi Arabia in pursuit of the joint interests of the two countries.
In a virtual meeting held Sunday, the governor of the Saudi General Authority of Zakat and Tax, Suhail Abanmi, said that Saudi Arabia is looking forward to applying the electronic bill (e-bill) system, benefiting from Egypt’s experience.
The Saudi official called on Egypt’s finance ministry to cooperate with its Saudi counterpart in providing their expertise in initiating the e-bill system and overcoming challenges that stand ahead of deploying such a system, especially amid the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.
For his part, Egypt’s Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait stressed that the ministry is ready to extend support to Saudi Arabia in this regard, adding that Egypt has followed the model of the Mexican experience concerning the e-bill system, which was the closest to the Egyptian experience.
Egypt’s finance ministry launched an e-bill system at the end of June, applying it to six companies. The system’s first phase was carried over to 134 companies as of mid-November, according to Maait.
Maait noted that the e-bill system is a critical step towards developing Egypt’s tax system that helps in attaining the state’s fiscal and economic targets and achieving integration between the tax system and the commercial community for the sake of merging the informal economy into the formal one.
He also added that Egypt is the first country in the Arab world to apply such a system as a part of the state’s plan that targets digital transformation, which is one of the important sustainable development goals that is included in Egypt’s Vision 2030.
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