Following the adoption this week in the Council of Ministers of a preliminary draft law adopted to amend article 149 of the Decree of 29 September 2005 on income tax, President Moïse will convene an extraordinary session the Chamber of Deputies, once this draft bill has been ratified by the Senate.

Although Rénald Lubérice the Secretary General of the Council of Ministers asserts that this convocation has nothing to do with the budget, in fact the link is undeniable and the last workers' demonstrations on Wednesday which made more than 10 wounded including 2 by balls https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-22247-haiti-flash-workers-protest-at-least-10-wounded-including-2-per-bullets.html and that of Thursday which again caused two wounded by bullets, are not alien to this modification and to the urgent need to bring down the popular pressure...

He said that the Government would ask for the benefit of urgency on this bill which will be forwarded Friday morning to the Senate and then once ratified the Chamber of Deputies will be convened to the extraordinary to vote this bill...

Recall that the minimum wage of subcontract workers was set at 350 Gourdes per day (Article 4 segment F www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21679-haiti-flash-minimum-wages-all-details.html ) or 15 gourdes of increase https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21648-haiti-flash-moise-sets-daily-minimum-wage-at-350-gdes.html for 45 gourdes of taxes to pay...

In the draft bill adopted by the Council of Ministers, new tax brackets for natural persons were set : from 1 to 120,000 Gdes : 0% of taxation ; from 120.001,00 to 240,000.00 Gdes : 10% ; from 240,001.00 to 480,000.00 Gdes : 15% ; from 480,001.00 to 1,000,000.00 Gdes : 25% ; from 1.000.000,00 Gdes : 30% .

This is good news for subcontracting workers and the lowest incomes in our society. By raising the threshold of annual taxable income from 60,000 to 120,000 Gourdes, the workers in particular will no longer have to pay the 10 per cent tax on their incomes, which was included in the new budget https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-22212-haiti-flash-full-details-of-the-2017-2018-budget-revenue-and-expenditure.html

SL/ HaitiLibre