Ammon News - The Lower House Monday endorsed the amended Aqaba Special Economic Zone (ASEZ) bill and referred other draft laws to its specialized committees.

The amendments aim to unify the customs management, giving more powers to the Customs Department within the ASEZ borders to detect and investigate customs crimes and collect taxes, fees, fines and service duties.

The draft also grants the Income and Sales Tax Department new powers to audit, calculate and collect the income and sales taxes, and the ASEZ tax.

But the lawmakers rejected a proposal to raise ASEZ's share of income and sales taxes collections to 40 per cent and kept the current 25 per cent ratio.

In today's session, which was chaired by Speaker Abdul Karim Dughmi and attended by Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh and cabinet members, the legislature referred other draft laws to relevant committees, including a bill abolishing the National Microfinance Bank that was passed to the Economy and Investment Committee, an extradition agreement between Jordan and Romania to the Legal Committee, and an amended General Sales Tax Law to the Finance Committee.

It also began debating the draft 2019 profession licensing law of the Greater Amman Municipality, and will tomorrow resume discussion of the bill's articles as well as debating a decision by the Legal Committee on constitutional amendments.