Exclusive, Akhbar Al-Yawm 

The finance law, its figures and the repercussions it can have on the economy have come back to the fore, with the appeal filed by ten deputies to the Constitutional Council.

And this is at a time when the application of the customs dollar is supposed to start on the basis of 15,000, after the finance minister of the interim government, Youssef Al Khalil, announced last week that the Ministry of Finance had sent today a letter to the Banque du Liban concerning the start of the calculation of exchange rates on taxes and fees levied by the customs administration on imported goods and merchandise, on the basis of 15 thousand pounds for one US dollar, from 1/12/2022.

For her part, Representative Paula Yacoubian confirmed that what is published is not what is approved by Parliament, and that is what happened in the budget, and the course needs to be corrected.

What is the fate of the budget?

The constitutionalist, lawyer Antonio Farhat, indicated through the agency "Akhbar Al-Yawm" that in any appeal, it is necessary to distinguish the form and the substance, in the form, it is rejected, whatever the reasons, and in the present case, the appeal is admissible because the budget was published in the Official Journal on the 15th of this month.

On the merits, the Constitutional Council can take a decision of provisional or conservatory suspension of the budget until the appeal is ruled, within a period not exceeding one month.

And what are the repercussions? Farhat said: If the Constitutional Council decides positively on the appeal, the budget figures indicated on the basis of 15,000 pounds to the dollar cannot come into force, including the customs dollar, which, although issued by a decision of the Ministry of Finance, is mainly based on budget figures.

 Farhat indicated that it is not true that the imposition of taxes is done by decision of the Minister of Finance. On the contrary, any tax must be issued in accordance with the law of the House of Representatives, warning that what happens in the House of Representatives is an evasion of responsibility. Nor can the Minister of Finance manipulate the exchange rate as he sees fit