Expats, employers worried over uncertain Saudi tax proposal

Expatriates in Saudi Arabia and their Saudi employers alike voiced unease about a proposal the government is studying to impose income tax on foreign workers to make up for falling oil revenues.

Around a third of the 30 million inhabitants of the world’s top oil exporter are foreigners, many of them drawn, despite ultra-conservative social restrictions, by the absence of tax and the lure of salaries higher than they could secure at home.

A National Transformation Plan of economic reforms, released on Monday, said 150 million riyals ($40 million) had been set aside for preparing and implementing tax on expats, but Finance Minister Ibrahim Alassaf said no decision had yet been taken.

Still, the news that such a proposal was being formally studied by the government was enough to alarm some foreign workers.

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