Alternatives exist to meet revenue needs

Source: Nida Al Watan – Marianne Zouein

$620 million annually. This is what the state expects to generate from the new taxes, on gasoline and on value-added tax, while the actual need to finance salaries amounts to approximately $800 million per year. Minister of Finance Yassin Jaber was clear in his press conference: “Reforms have begun, but the state needs the money now, and it cannot wait for reforms that take time.” What was not presented with the same clarity, however, is that real reform has not truly begun, and that other alternatives exist which are capable of generating similar or even greater revenues without imposing the same burden on the groups that already pay taxes. The government, which had pledged not to raise taxes, has instead returned to the easiest path: placing additional burdens on an exhausted economy and on a citizen who has long since lost the capacity to endure more.

So… what is the alternative?

Member of Parliament (MP) Ghada Ayoub proposed one serious funding alternative: eliminating the exemption of imported gold (bullion and coins) from value-added tax and customs duties. An exemption that is unjustified except for the Central Bank, and one that, in practice, opens the door to the shadow economy and to questionable financial channels.

Figures obtained by Nida Al Watan reveal the scale of this lost resource. In 2023, Lebanon imported approximately 34 tons of gold, valued at nearly $2.08 billion. In 2024, the quantity reached 30 tons, worth $2.23 billion. In 2025, the volume remained at 30 tons, but the value rose to approximately $3.33 billion due to higher global prices.

If the quantities remain the same in 2026, and based on current elevated prices, the value of imported gold is expected to reach around $5 billion. Imposing only the 11% VAT on this amount could generate approximately $550 million annually for the state (roughly equivalent to, and even exceeding, the projected revenues from the gasoline tax) without the state withdrawing a single dollar from the pockets of the middle and lower classes.

This example is not the only one. Economic experts affirm that customs reform and the investment of state assets alone could generate around $3 billion annually. Moreover, customs reform would open the door to curbing tax evasion, in a country where the World Bank estimates the size of the parallel economy at about 40% of the total economy. Drying up this parallel economy and increasing compliance with income tax payments could bring approximately $1.8 billion annually into the state treasury.

“The state needs the money quickly.” In response to this statement by the Minister of Finance, an obvious question arises: after a full year of assuming your responsibilities, why have you not begun implementing these reforms and others? Would it not have been more appropriate to start by restructuring the public sector; at the very least, so that citizens do not feel they are paying out of their own pockets for unproductive employees, or for positions originally created through political patronage?

Another equally pressing question follows: why did you approve in Parliament the depletion of the budget reserve by distributing it to the Council for the South, the Higher Relief Commission, and other entities, instead of preserving it within a comprehensive reform vision aimed at restoring balance to public finances?

When officials avoid confronting the reality of arbitrary political hiring, and when funds are spent outside the framework of structural reform, at the expense of law-abiding taxpayers who alone remain committed to paying taxes, it becomes clear that the old policies remain unchanged, even if presented in reformist “packaging.”

The deep state remains deeply entrenched. And if reform does not begin at its roots, can we truly claim to be entering a new era?