Oman announced it plans to levy an income tax on wealthy individuals beginning in 2022.
The decision to reduce service fee for patents, utility models and industrial designs for students, research centres and…
62 Views | the publication reaches you by | Oman NewsGerman diplomat Joachim Duster has closely followed Gulf affairs since the 1970s and told Al-Monitor, “Oman is waking up to the realities of this world.”
Oman is on track to post its seventh straight year in the red while public debt is expected to reach 80% of gross domestic product this year, 16 times more than the number in 2014.
“It is the middle class that is going to be hit badly … I think the upper-income class will find ways to evade the personal income tax,” Abdullah Baabood, visiting professor at Waseda University, Tokyo, told Al-Monitor.
At a time when future global oil demand is uncertain, the Gulf state still relies on oil sales for half of its annual revenues. Sworn in Jan. 11, Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said inherited a cash-strapped country from his predecessor, known to be the “father of modern Oman.”
“Sultan Qaboos was moving Oman into a rentier state, while Haitham’s task, in a way, is to move the country out of it,” Duster said. The coronavirus pandemic helped the ruler to rally public support, he added, “in normal times, people would have protested.”
The UK and Oman will open a new joint training base in the sultanate early next year. The…
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