Interview with Georges Corm

ENAR

Now that the government has approved the 2017 budget, the question remains as to what new taxes or tax increases might be imposed. As Executive goes to print, the indication is that there will be some introduced, but it is not clear which, and Parliament will have to debate the budget before it is ratified into law. There appears to be zero studies by the government (or, at least, none that are public, and officials decline to provide details) of expected revenues, their social impacts or the effects to the economy that new taxes might imply (see cover story). Georges Corm, Lebanon’s minister of finance at the turn of last century, describes to Executive the government and Parliament’s approach to financing public spending as convoluted and misleading. “[It’s] like somebody stumbling through a room without lights,” he says. E   How do you view the government’s proposal of new taxes