Messaitfa: “Ninety days are enough to set the number of wealthy Algerians”

The Minister Delegate in Charge of Statistics and Forecasting, Mr. Bachir Messaitfa, denied any difficulties in counting the number of wealthy people in Algeria, stressing that “only three months are sufficient for the overall inventory of the rich of Algeria.

 However, he stressed that a joint committee should be set up between the Customs, the Commercial Register Center, the Bank of Algeria, in order to compile an exhaustive data base that pinpoints all those people liable to the wealth tax. 

Speaking to “Echorouk” on Sunday, he added that the decision to withdraw the tax from the Finance Act of 2018 was motivated by political motives and inter- partisan wrangling.

Mr. Messaitfa  said that the formation of a joint committee  involving such sectors as taxes, the National Property Agency “OPGI” and Customs, which retain the best statistics in Algeria, as well as the services of foreign affairs ministry, the Directorate of State Property and the National Statistics Bureau, which ranks first Africa, and the National Center of the Trade Register, would set the number of wealthy people within a maximum of three months, or at least create a platform from which to start counting and taxing the rich starting by December 2018. 

The wealth tax is annual and will be applied at the end of each year, he asserted.

Our interlocutor expected that the relevant list to include around 23 thousand rich people, as the initial statistics on the number of businessmen under the umbrella of the employers’ organizations, as well as the number of small and medium-sized  enterprises, estimated today at about 600 thousand enterprises in addition to the number of traders and peasants, known to the official authorities.

Mr. Bachir Messaitfa further explained: “The imposition of wealth tax is easier than the fees of “IBS” and the taxes for traders and peasants, if there is a genuine will to apply such a measure.

He said that even if the wealth-related tax is not significant , it does not mean that the authorities are not  compelled to impose it, because “compliance with the tax on wealth is  meant for another direction, as the rate of collection of ordinary taxes, is very low,”, he underlined.

Referring to the French example on the issue, he stressed: “political circumstances and partisan quarrels prompted the French Parliament to cancel the wealth tax, and I think the same motive is behind the backtracking of the Algerian parliament from imposing it in the Finance Law for the coming year.”

During a visit to Algeria last week on the sidelines of the proceedings of the Joint Economic Commission between the two countries, the French Minister of Economy and Finance informed the Minister of Finance Abderrahmane Raouya about the amendment brought to the wealth tax, which was replaced by the real estate tax in France. 

The wealth tax in France was thus imposed on 351 thousand rich people, and thereby 3.2 billion Euros are collected a year.

As a recall, the United States was the first country to adopt this tax in 2007, and its revenues contributed to the “resolution” of the economic and financial crisis experienced by the banks there, and this tax is still imposed in the United States of America to this day despite the controversy and debate waged by American businessmen and wealthy people.