Parliament Speaker Mohamed Nasheed said the latest amendment to the Tourism Act will not allow the state to recover the amount of green tax lost.
The amendment to the Tourism Act passed by Parliament in June was dated in such a way that closed the way for the Maldives Inland Revenue Authority (MIRA) to levy the green tax.
The government has proposed an amendment to change the phrase and re-tax it.
During the debate on the amendment, Nasheed said the bill should be clear to both the members and the government.
Nasheed said the bill stipulates that if a tourist is charged green tax during the period between July 3 and the bill's passage, the tax is liable to be paid back to the state unless it has been refunded to the tourist.
"Remember that the tourist has already left. We will then have see if he was charged for green tax or whether the guesthouse invoiced them with the tax," Nasheed said.
Nasheed said that according to Article 59 of the constitution, an act that is not defined as an offense by law cannot be punished by a law which is formed later.
"In the law you are proposing now, you are asking to change something that has been done in the past, by making an amendment after it has been done. I don't think this article will be included in the law," Nasheed said.
According to the statistics provided by MIRA, green tax collection stood at over MVR 547 million as of June 2022. Therefore, if the amendment to the Tourism Act continues as it is, the state revenue will be reduced by about MVR 600 million.
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