Lower House endorses draft ASEZA law

AMMAN — The Lower House on Monday endorsed the amended Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA) draft law and referred other drafts to its specialised committees.

The amendments aim to unify the customs management, giving more powers to the Jordan Customs Department within the ASEZA borders to detect and investigate customs crimes and collect taxes, fees, fines and service duties, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

The draft also grants the Income and Sales Tax Department new powers to audit, calculate and collect income and sales taxes, and the ASEZA tax.

On the other hand, the MPs rejected a proposal to raise ASEZA's share of income and sales tax collections to 40 per cent and kept the current 25 per cent rate.

During the session, which was chaired by Speaker Abdulkarim Dughmi and attended by Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Bisher Khasawneh and Cabinet members, the Chamber referred other draft laws to relevant committees.

These drafts included a bill abolishing the National Microfinance Bank that was passed to the Economy and Investment Committee, an extradition agreement between Jordan and Romania to the Legal Committee, and an amended General Sales Tax Law to the Finance Committee.

The Chamber also began deliberations on the draft 2019 profession licensing law of the Greater Amman Municipality, and is scheduled to resume discussions of the bill's articles as well as debating a decision by the Legal Committee on constitutional amendments on Tuesday.