El Andalous - Tax Office

 

I'd Rather be on the Beach

It’s not nice to pay tax at the best of times, but it’s even worse when it eats up all your time. My life should be easier now I don’t have a Swiss tax return.

However, I wanted to switch my stocks and shares account from my Swiss address to my Egyptian address. Last time I tried to do this several years ago (and gave up), they wanted me to provide (i) a residence visa and (ii) an electricity bill with my address on it. However, at the time, my visa was just a tourist visa in Arabic in my passport and my bills didn’t have my address, because they are just given to me by hand. The smallest things over here can get very complicated.

This time, I was more determined. I asked our accountant to change the structure of our water and electricity bills so that they’d show our full address (otherwise they are not recognized by the authorities as proof of residence). He enquired higher up in the company and it was allowed. The change was made. Tick.

Since this year, the visa office supplies us with visa cards which show the validity of the visa and a personal identification number. It’s part in Arabic, part in English, so I was able to use that as my proof of visa as it looks more official than a stamp in Arabic in your passport. Tick.

Unfortunately, although I passed these hurdles, they still said I couldn’t change my address unless I gave them an Egyptian tax number. It’s like a never-ending obstacle race. All I want to do is change my address!

I looked up how to get an Egyptian tax number on the internet, but it said to get a tax number, you had to supply a contract of employment. But I’m not working. I’m living off savings.

There was no way I would be able to get anyone in the tax office to understand this rather complicated state of affairs, so I asked Esmat if he could help. He said his friend who worked in the tax office would sort it for me. One reminder and several weeks of waiting later, nothing happened. Egyptians don’t like to say “no”. This can also make life difficult at times.

In the end I got a lawyer to come with me and sort it out (only I’m not sure it was). It’s never simple over here. I’m not too sure where we went. As with many official buildings, the outside area is just sand and rubble and it’s hard to believe that this is where the tax headquarters is located.

We must have seen three or four separate people. I was a bit freaked out as hardly anyone was wearing a mask. This is in a government building! I’d worn my antiviral mask for the occasion, so I was okay. Anyway, this first building was for paying my overdue property tax. At least that’s done and dusted now.

Our management company said they will pay this tax. I was waiting for them to bill me. Many owners don’t trust them. I’m not too sure what the truth is. I hear the management company still has the title deeds (why?!), in which case, the tax should be payable by them. On the other hand, if I pay the tax, perhaps I have a greater right? It’s difficult (or should I say “impossible”?) to get to the bottom of things over here. Anyway, I had to go to the tax office, so I thought I should just settle it while I was there.

My lawyer joked to one guy that he was on the computer and that things were starting to get modern (he may not have said that at all as the conversation was in Arabic, but that’s what I imagined him saying). Everyone else in the office was working with huge ledgers all stacked up on their tables. They flick through it to the right page (one hopes!), and everything gets recorded there. It seems a miracle that they can track everything like this, but it does seem to work. Even the single computer looked a little old-fashioned!

The next step, my lawyer said, was to fill out a tax declaration form. So off we went to a different building and had to find the right room dealing with Sahl Hasheesh (can you imagine me trying to do this on my own!!). The tax declaration is new and has to be done by end of March this year. If you don’t fill it out, there’s a fine of 5000 LE (around 250 GBP, which is a lot of money over here; and it’s more than the penalty for submitting your tax form late in the UK!). It turned out to be a property tax declaration form. I had to provide various details about my property – the size, the location, number of rooms etc. Out came another ledger.

In return for filling out the form (which was only in Arabic, so my lawyer did it for me), I got a property tax registration number. This is what’s new, I think. Each person has their own number. It’s supposed to be complying with the way things are done in other countries. Egypt is making vast improvements at the moment and things are becoming more and more up to date and really at quite an impressive pace when you think just how much is being done over here.

I asked my lawyer yet again about whether I could get a tax number, but he said it wasn’t possible because I don’t have any business earnings in Egypt. He said my property tax number would do. I am not convinced.

Anyway, I’ve submitted my materials again to my stocks and shares account and I’m hoping they will accept my property tax number as a tax number. To my mind, it’s not really what they want, but I don’t know what else I can possibly do.

I’m still facing massive problems trying to submit my UK tax return this year, but that might have to wait for another blog…