Finance Minister in March this year presented to Parliament the 2017 budget, his first budget statement and economic policy.

The budget gave details of government’s expenditure and revenue generation plan for the year 2017.

 It also announced a number of tax reliefs for businesses in the country.

The highlights of the 2017 budget include the following:

Some Tax Incentives

- abolish the 1 percent Special Import Levy;

- abolish the 17.5 percent VAT/NHIL on financial services;

- abolish the 17.5 percent VAT/NHIL on selected imported medicines, that are not produced locally;

- abolish the 17.5 percent VAT/NHIL on domestic airline tickets;

- abolish the 5 percent VAT/NHIL on Real Estate sales;

- abolish excise duty on petroleum

- reduce special petroleum tax rate from 17.5 percent to 15 percent;

- abolish duty on the importation of spare parts;

- abolish levies imposed on kayayei by local authorities;

- reduce National Electrification Scheme Levy from 5 percent to 3 percent;

- reduce Public Lighting Levy from 5 percent to 2 percent;

- abolish levies imposed on religious institutions by local authorities;

Other Initiatives

- Under the “One Village One Dam” campaign, small to medium scale irrigation schemes to be identified and rehabilitated.

- Ministry of Trade to implement the “One District One Factory” initiative to ensure an even spatial spread of industries.

- Ministry of Education to commence implementation of free secondary education in September for the 2017/18 academic year.

- 275 constituencies to be allocated the equivalent of US$1 million annually under the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP)

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