President's Office has forwarded a list of bills the government intends to submit to the Parliament of the Maldives in the last session of the year.
The parliamentary regulations state the government is required to send a list of bills it plans to submit to the Parliament before the start of a new session. The bills include the Tax Amendment Bill, the Judiciary Amendment Bill, the Criminal Procedure Act Amendment Bill, the Maldives Health Service Bill, the Hajj and Umrah Bill, the Foreign Investment Bill, and the Compensation for Defamation.
Through the Tax Amendment Bill, the government has planned to hike the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and Tourism Goods and Services Tax (TGST) to increase state revenue. The Ministry of Finance has stated the government decided to implement tax hikes in response to changes in the global market and in accordance with the current economic situation, which threatens to become worse if no measures are taken. As such, the government will be decreasing expenditure and implementing a variety of measures to increase state revenue, including increasing TGST from 12% to 16% and increasing GST from 6% to 8%. The changes are proposed to be implemented in January 2023.
The last session for 2022 convened on August 18 and will conclude in November.