Should our banks pay more? No.

The proposed salary scale introduces an increase in spending of roughly $1.4 billion in public sector salaries. These funds will come from various taxation schemes, one of the most controversial being an increase in taxes on banks. The proposed bill would firstly increase the tax on depositors’ interest income from 5 to 7 percent. Secondly, it would increase the tax on banks’ interest revenues from various government securities from 5 to 7 percent and disallow deducting these sums from the banks’ income tax bills. Finally, banks would pay 17 percent income tax instead of the current 15 percent. The proposed bill has caused much controversy not only in the ranks of Parliament, but also among economists and members of civil society. Executive invited Ghassan Dibah and Nassib Ghobril to argue opposing sides in this debate. Here is Nassib Ghobril’s take on this issue.   First, contrary to the prevailing cliché,