A new bill will surely affect every expatriate in Kuwait including thousands of overseas Filipino workers (OFW) as Kuwait’s parliamentary financial and economic affairs committee has approved bills imposing fees on expat remittances which are expected to bring in over $230 million in revenue to Kuwaiti government, according to the state-run Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).
According to the laws, the fees imposed on expats earning KD 90 dinar ($300) salary category would be at 1%, 2% for the KD 100-200 ($333-$667) earners, 3% for those with salaries of KD 300-499 ($1,000-$1,664) , and 5% for the KD 500 to 1,664 ($1,667-$5,550) earnings in salary per month.
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According to the laws, the fees imposed on expats earning KD 90 dinar ($300) salary category would be at 1%, 2% for the KD 100-200 ($333-$667) earners, 3% for those with salaries of KD 300-499 ($1,000-$1,664) , and 5% for the KD 500 to 1,664 ($1,667-$5,550) earnings in salary per month.
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The Kuwait parliament’s financial and economic affairs committee has given its stamp of approval to a bill stipulating fees on overseas workers’ remittance fees abroad.
This comes after two-thirds of the committee approved the piece of legislation, on the premise that the taxes to be imposed to money transfers of expatriates must be low, Kuwait News Agency quoted MP Salah Khorshed as saying.
Once the bill has been passed into law, Khorshed says that they expect to gather KD 19 billion (approximately $63 billion) in a year out of the fees from money transfers.
The bill is proposing for the imposition of different fees for various salary categories: KD 90 at one percent remittance fee, the KD 100 to 200 segment at two percent, the KD 300 to 499 category at three percent and the KD 500 to 1,664 segment t five percent.
Meanwhile, commission rapporteur Saleh Ashour for his part said that they are currently in talks with legal experts over issues that may arise once the new legislation is passed into law.
Meanwhile, the deployment ban of OFWs in Kuwait stays in spite of the arrest of the former employers of Joanna Demafelis, an OFW who's body was found inside a freezer on an abandoned flat formerly occupied by her Lebanese and Syrian employers.
