Abu-Ghazaleh Calls for Sales Tax Cuts on Highly Demanded Electronic Devices

AMMAN – HE Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, founder and chairman of Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Global (TAG.Global), called on the concerned authorities to seriously consider appeals for sales tax reduction on all electronic devices and their tools.

Representative of the Communications and Information Technology (ICT) Sector at the Jordan Chamber of Commerce (JCC), Eng. Haitham Al-Rawajbeh, has recently called for reducing the sales tax on such devices to no more than 8 percent.

For his part, Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh supported these requests, pointing out that the financial return on the business, the economic and the education sectors as a result of the proposed reduction would exceed many times the amount collected from high taxes. Higher taxes are known to be counterproductive as they reduce sale and therefore reduce tax revenue, he said. 

Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh also indicated that this step would positively contribute to accelerating the digital transformation process, noting that sales tax cut would be directly proportional to prices, and consequently, citizens will be more willing to purchase ICT products and tools, hence the rise in demand would definitely boost national economy in general, and the ICT sector in particular.

Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh stated that he has previously called for taking prompt formal actions to encourage technological and e-transformation, since the whole world is moving in this direction, adding that we should keep abreast with this rapid transformation by cutting sales tax as necessary measure.

It is worth mentioning that Al-Rawajbeh had pointed out that the process of digital transformation in all relevant fields, has become an urgent need and an inevitable reality that should be addressed especially in light of the challenges imposed by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

It should be noted that there are 3,000 active companies in the ICT sector in the Kingdom which employ a total number of 45 thousand employees.