Year 1961 - Part 10: The General Income Tax Law and the Death of Said al-Sarraj

Tuesday the 25th: A General Income Tax

In the same series of socialist laws, President Abdel Nasser issued a decision-law on this date, imposing a general tax on income.

He had spoken to me about this several months earlier, when El-Kaissouni proposed, in the President's own presence, along with Field Marshal Amer and Nour al-Din Kahhaleh, imposing a "token rate" on individuals' and companies' general income, simply to establish the principle. I opposed the proposal at the time, fearing Syrian capital, large and small alike, would pour out across the border. I proposed, at the time, forming a joint Syrian-Egyptian committee to prepare a report for the President on the matter, and the report that came back supported my own view.

I assumed the matter had gone dormant, until further notice, so that we might prepare for it properly.

But it was issued along with the other socialist laws, as part of the broader establishment of the socialist system.

My not having taken part in drafting it does not mean I opposed it.

Quite the opposite, I found it, in its own principle, a humane and just law, one applied even more rigorously in the capitalist countries themselves.

If I have reservations about certain rates, I have no objection to the subject itself.

I issued a statement to the public, explaining its own most important provisions.

This law consists of seventeen articles, summarized here:

Article 1: It establishes a general income tax, applying to the net total income of natural persons holding United Arab Republic nationality, wherever they reside (in Syria, Egypt, or abroad),

and to the net income of foreigners residing in the Syrian region, even if their income arises from sources outside Syria.

Foreigners not resident in Syria are subject to the general income tax only on the portion of their income earned within it.

Article 2: It exempts, for each individual, an annual minimum of up to 10,000 lira of total income, with further exemptions added for family dependents.

To give some sense of this exemption, I note it comes close to the salary of a first-rank university professor.

It likewise exempts members of the diplomatic and consular corps, and foreigners, on condition of reciprocal treatment.

Article 4: The following are deducted from the taxpayer's own general income, that is, lifted from his own shoulders:

Interest on his debts.

All direct taxes paid during the previous year.

Life insurance premiums for the benefit of his wife or children, provided they do not exceed 5 percent of net total income, or 2,000 lira, whichever is less.

Article 5: A further 500 lira is deducted for a wife and for each child, provided the total exemption does not exceed 2,000 lira.

Article 6: It sets the tax rate on brackets of net total income, beginning at 8 percent for income exceeding 10,000 lira a year, 9 percent for income between 15,000 and 20,000, rising to 90 percent for anyone whose annual profit exceeds 90,000.

The statement I issued on 29 July 1961 included the following:

"The tax system in force in the Syrian region, prior to the issuing of the general income tax law, rested on multiple specific taxes, lacking the necessary unity to ensure social justice among citizens.

It struck small taxpayers at the very same rates as large ones, a state of affairs at odds with the demands of social justice and the spirit of the socialist system.

The issuing of this law has become a necessity demanded by our own new development, to correct the contradictions prevailing in our current tax system.

There is no doubt that the role taxation plays is no longer confined to collecting sums from citizens to cover the budget's needs, but has become a role of a fairer, more just character, indeed carrying a deeper meaning in the concept of equality among citizens, one no longer resting on mere theoretical constitutional equality in abstract rights and general duties, since its new role, for us as for others, must be equality in sacrifice, bearing burdens each according to his own true capacity.

This tax was not invented anew by socialist systems, but is one the capitalist systems themselves have long adopted, in the United States, England, France, Switzerland, Italy, and elsewhere.

For this reason, it was only logical for the Arab socialist revolution to adopt it as well, to establish, through it, firm justice and genuine equality among citizens, toward their own country and their own fellow citizens."

Examples were given showing that small taxpayers among merchants and industrialists benefited from a reduction in their total taxes, from 49 percent down to just 17 percent.

One example given was that a citizen whose gross annual income was 18,500 lira used to pay 4,084 lira under the previous legislation, leaving him 14,416 lira, whereas under the new legislation his income becomes 15,737 lira, an increase of 1,322 lira.

As for the citizen whose total annual income reaches 130,000 lira (a relatively large income), he used to pay the state only 17,020 Syrian lira in taxes, whereas under the new law the tax owed on his income becomes 61,055 lira, leaving him a net income of 68,945 lira, without doubt still a large sum by the standard of the general cost of living.

The Lebanese newspaper al-Nahar (banned from entering the region) praised the new socialist measures, saying:

"Abdel Nasser has removed himself from the ranks of Hitler, Franco, and Mussolini, but has not placed himself in the ranks of Lenin and Mao Zedong."

When we visited the expanded Five-Man Company, Minister of Industry Wajih al-Samman stood in for the President, and we all sensed that something new had happened at this once-dominant capitalist establishment, for its workers received us with a real glow of joy in their eyes, and a firm resolve in their own will to carry it forward to where it would, at last, truly serve its own social function.

In the address Abdel Nasser gave on 22 July of this month, commenting on the socialist character of this legislation, he said the path of socialism was a long one, and that we had to walk it steadily, until every citizen had a car and a refrigerator of his own.

A wish that was never, in fact, fulfilled for them.

When I met with President Abdel Nasser, I told him candidly that the impact of these laws had fallen hard on the groups harmed by them. If further laws of this kind were coming, it would be best to issue them and then close the door on the matter for good. He asked me to issue an official statement declaring: the socialist legislation has concluded, and no further measures will be taken from here on. I did so.

But confidence had already evaporated from their own hearts, confirming the familiar saying: "capital is cowardly, and forever seeks safety."

Yet the interest of the majority takes precedence over that of the minority, whenever cooperation between the two proves impossible.

On the political level, it was decided that balance would be struck "among the social forces of the working people's alliance" within the political organizations, on the basis of fifty percent for workers and peasants, a right guaranteed to them, so that they would not be overwhelmed by the strong class's own vast material and cultural resources.

But after the secession took place, two months and a few days later, Abdel Nasser's own reaction against capitalism and reaction turned exceedingly harsh.

I digress here to record what he said in an address given nineteen days after the secession, raising the banner "no truce with reaction," on 16 October 1961:

"We fell into a grave illusion, one a growing confidence in ourselves and in others led us into. We refused reconciliation with colonialism.

But we fell into the mistake of reconciliation with reaction.

We imagined that, whatever our own differences with reaction might be, they were sons of the same homeland, partners in the same fate.

But experience has proven to us how wrong this illusion was.

Experience has proven that reaction is one of colonialism's own pillars, and shows no hesitation in leaning on it in turn, to strip the popular struggle of its own social fruits.

For the sake of the popular struggle's own integrity, we must now free ourselves of this dangerous illusion we allowed ourselves to fall into.

We must fight reaction, and fight it within the very arms of colonialism itself."

Tuesday, 1 August: Al-Sarraj and the Military Ministers in Cairo

There seem to be signs of new surprises looming on the political horizon, following the announcement of the economic revolution, and the growing talk among people "of the Union's own faults."

Today, Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj and all the military ministers were summoned to Cairo, with no one telling us the reason for their trip.

It appears the President has begun drawing a distinction between men of "trust," meaning the officer-ministers, and men of "expertise," meaning the civilian ministers.

And that he has begun relying more and more heavily on these men of trust.

In a conversation with Nour al-Din Kahhaleh and Lieutenant General Jamal al-Faisal, I sensed that Abdel Nasser was preparing to take radical decisions, on the political front.

The "intelligence" services have grown more active again, after a period of calm.

Two days ago, they summoned the head of the inspection body at the Ministry of the Treasury, and interrogated him over his own "criticisms" of the general income tax law issued a few days earlier.

I am confident that whoever wrote the "report" about him was not being honest.

For this senior official of ours holds extreme leftist views, and a law like this one suits his own leanings perfectly, entirely in keeping with his own "scientific socialist," Marxist temperament.

A gloom spread among the ministry's own senior officials, a gloom tinged with anxiety, and, in some cases, outright fear.

This is a truly terrible state of affairs for the Ministry of the Treasury.

For once an official comes to believe that taking a strict, lawful stand against some evasive merchant might result in that same merchant "fabricating" statements attributed to him against the regime, statements that reach the finely tuned ears of intelligence officers, leading to his own summons to "sip coffee" in one of the intelligence service's own basements, he will grow very hesitant indeed to take any bold action against those manipulating their own tax assessments.

The ministry's own officials know well my own firm stance in standing beside them, so that they can feel secure in their own freedom and in their own livelihood, drawn from their own official work.

Proceeding from this very view, one that has borne fruit, I went to al-Sarraj's own office and discussed with him the matter of this senior official, and the damaging impression left by his summons to the intelligence departments. He understood my own point of view, and summoned the head of this ill-reputed apparatus, instructing him never again to question any finance official without consulting me first.

Tuesday, 1 August: An Imaginary Conspiracy

A statement was issued today by the Ministry of Interior, announcing the discovery of a "conspiracy" against the state's safety, organized by a party with fascist roots, along with the discovery of a weapons cache its members were training with.

"Rumors" said that fifteen officers belonging to this party had been arrested in Aleppo, and that their goal was to carry out a coup against the Union.

These "rumors" pointed toward the Armenian Tashnag party.

We were seized with great anxiety. I contacted army commander Lieutenant General al-Faisal, who assured me the matter was entirely without foundation.

Even so, Minister of Justice Nihad al-Qasim advised me not to travel to the town of "Kessab," since most of its residents are Tashnag Armenians, and the owner of the hotel where I intended to stay for a few days of rest was under arrest, over his own direct connection to "the conspiracy."

For this reason, I changed my own plans, and made my way instead to Slenfeh, where we stayed for a few days.

The town of Slenfeh is truly magnificent, with its own gentle air and striking greenery.

The director of agriculture took me to a pine forest lying on its own outskirts, and I felt as though I were in one of the forests of the Black Alps, so thick were its own trees, and so dense the canopy of its own branches, letting through not a single ray of sunlight.

I wonder what al-Mutanabbi himself might have said, had he ever seen it, beyond what he already said of the Baouan Gorge:

"Playgrounds of paradise, through which, had Solomon himself passed, he would have needed an interpreter to guide him.

We went about shaking its own branches, scattering pearls upon its own slopes.

I walked on, the sun itself hidden from me by these very branches, which gave me, in its place, all the light I needed.

And the east cast, from among them, gold coins onto my own clothes, spilling from unseen fingers.

Whenever the gray doves sang within it, the very singing girls answered them back in song."

Wednesday the 2nd

Today, the Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov launched into space, at six in the morning, to orbit the earth seventeen times over twenty-five hours.

May God have mercy on that "jurist" I used to hear, as a child, "teaching" at the neighborhood mosque, foam filling his mouth with real fervor, to teach us that the righteous believer needs no machine guns, no cannons, no planes. What could these mere "toys" possibly do to a believer, who, "the moment he declares there is no god but God, his body turns to light, so that he could lift one leg in Aleppo and set the other down in Baghdad"? He used to insist that the righteous believer was mightier than any weapon, and that "the unbelievers" were created solely to serve us. And why, he said, should a man who already has his own cook go about dirtying his own hands with the greasy pot himself?

We memorized his lesson well, and lived by it faithfully, and remained loyal to it.

And we still do, praise be to God, who alone deserves praise, even for what seems, at first, ill fortune.

Tuesday, 15 August: The Death of Said al-Sarraj

Today is Hama's own day.

The government made its way there, in full force.

To attend the funeral of one of its own sons, Said al-Sarraj, brother of Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj.

Enormous delegations arrived from every province.

The wreaths of flowers were beyond counting.

Among the mourners walking in the procession, I noticed people who harbored a blind hatred for al-Sarraj, men who, were his name mentioned twice in their presence, would very nearly collapse from sheer dizziness.

There, I met the Lebanese Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt, tall and slender in stature, holding fast to his own silence, for he spoke only when directly addressed, and even then only briefly.

I was told he frequently visits India, practices yoga there, and blends Hindu beliefs with the principles of our own tolerant faith.

After the deceased's remains were laid to rest, the mayor of Hama gave a eulogy for him, saying he was the first to bring the automatic bakery oven to the city, and that, "thanks to him," people had come to eat clean bread, untouched by the hands of laborers.

Was Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj, one wonders, so beloved in Hama that it overflowed with its own residents and with visitors from elsewhere, come to console him on his brother's death?

"Whoever lets himself be deceived by this world, I have already worn out its own garments myself."