“The Senate and the government agreed that there is a necessity to boost capital market investments and the first step to achieve this is to address taxation problems that might negatively affect the flow of investments into the capital market,” said the report.

The reform proposals were put down by Senators Yasser Zaki and Ahmed Samir. Zaki said “the constitution gives the Senate the right to submit proposals to the government and ours is the first to exercise this right.”

Hani Sari El-Din — the chairman of the Senate’s Financial, Economic, and Investment Affairs Committee — told senators that the Senate and the government has reached an agreement on the necessity of reforming the structure of taxes which currently govern trading operations in the Egyptian capital market.

Sari El-Din said the capital gains tax, which came into effect on 2014, has been suspended for more than six years.

“When the Ministry of Finance announced that the capital gains tax will be implemented on the first of January 2022, a lot of businessmen and investors called for a dialogue because of the negative impact of this tax on trading operations,” said Sarieddin.

“After three sessions of dialogue, we formed a committee and reached an agreement that we decided to take recommendations not only on postponing the capital gains tax, but on the necessity of reforming the structure of taxes governing trading operations on the capital market.”

“We took 16 recommendations that aim to reform the tax structure in order to attract more investments to the capital market,” Sari El-Din explained.

Akmal Nagati — the secretary-general of the Senate’s Financial, Economic, and Investment Affairs Committee — said the government showed a quick and positive response to the proposals put down by the Senate in the area of addressing tax problems facing capital market investors.