House passes amended bill on excise tax
The House of Peoples’ Representatives, in its 20th regular session held
on 27 March 2008, has passed the amended bill on excise tax and referred three
bills to pertinent standing committees for further scrutiny and examination
with majority votes.
In today’s session, the House endorsed the bill on excise tax as Proclamation No. 570/2008 with majority votes of 275 for, 24 objections and 24 abstentions after holding thorough discussions on the recommendation presented for decision by the Budget and Finance Affairs Standing Committee.
As indicated in the recommendation submitted by the committee, the bill was discussed in depth by the committee members, unanimously agreed on its substance, and enriched and substantiate it soliciting inputs from resource professionals of pertinent bodies to make provisions to the competitiveness of the mushrooming domestic industrial sector.
Meanwhile, the House referred a bill mainly to the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection to be jointly scrutinized with the Budget and Finance Affairs Standing Committee as well as the Foreign, Defense and Security Affairs Standing Committee, which Ethiopia signed with the OPEC Fund for International Development for financing Sawla-Keyafer Rural Electrification Project,
The House also referred two bills mainly to the Budget and Finance Affairs Standing Committee to be jointly scrutinized with the Foreign, Defense and Security Affairs Standing Committee, which Ethiopia signed separately with the government of the Czech Republic and the government of the French Republic to ratify the convention for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income.