Muscat: Oman’s Shura and State Councils have recommended that the government raise taxes on petrochemical and mining companies.
The State Council recommended a 12 per cent tax but the elected body wants them to be taxed 35 per cent.
The Shura Council also said the current 15 per cent tax on Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) was too low. It says the government should raise that to a whopping 55 per cent.
The government recently slapped a 15 per cent tax on companies in the mining, oil and gas sector, as it grapples with the fallout over low oil prices.
Oman’s Shura Council is elected by the people and has 85 members whereas the State Council’s 83 members are directly appointed by Sultan Qaboos.
Sultan Al Abri, a Shura council member, says members who voted against the proposal should be expelled.
He accused them of having a vested interest in the sectors by providing them mining equipment.
Tawfiq Al Lawati, another Shura council member, said that some companies working in the mining, oil and gas sectors made over 100 million rials in 2014 alone with only 8 million of that revenue went to the government.
Oman posted a deficit of 1.6 billion rials in the first quarter of 2016 due to the drop in oil prices, according to the Financial Affairs and Energy Resources Council. The council recommended a review of non-oil revenues as well as rationalising expenditures.
Oman is facing a big challenge amid the plunge of the oil prices, which substantially has affected the country’s revenues, which declined by more than 50 per cent in 2015.
In 2015, the government posted a 4.5 billion rial deficit.