Saudi considers imposing income tax on foreigners

A document issued on Tuesday revealed that Saudi Arabia is to discuss imposing income tax on foreigners as the Kingdom is seeking to raise non-oil revenues, Anadolu reported.

The Palestinian Al-Resala newspaper, which reported on the news from Anadolu, said that the document did not mention details about the rate of the tax.

Saudi statistics said that the number of foreigners in 2015 was 10.07 million out of 30.6 million residents in the country. This means that the foreigners are one third of the Saudi residents.

On 25 April, Saudi announced its economic plan for 2030, which aims to raise non-oil revenues. The plan included the establishment of a $2 billion investment fund and raising non-oil revenues to $267 billion a year.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, is suffering a drop in income due to the falling oil prices. It has announced a budget deficit of $87 billion for this year.

The Saudi ministerial council approved on Monday the National Change programme, one of the programmes of the Saudi 2030 plan.

On 2 June, Al-Riyadh newspaper reported that the Saudi Shura Council is studying a proposal to impose six per cent fees on the outbound cash transfers.

The newspaper reported that this would encourage foreigners to invest their money and savings inside the Kingdom. The same proposal would also improve the level of services offered to foreign workers and would prevent them from getting additional illegal income sources.