Jordan's King Abdullah called Tuesday (June 5th) for a review of a controversial draft income tax law, after a week of anti-austerity protests and the resignation of the country's prime minister, AFP reported.
For nearly a week the capital and other cities have been hit by angry demonstrations against IMF-backed reforms that have brought repeated price hikes.
In a letter charging new premier Omar al-Razzaz with forming a government, King Abdullah said it "must carry out a comprehensive review of the tax system" to avoid "unjust taxes that do not achieve justice and balance between the incomes of the poor and the rich".
Late Monday, the king had warned the country was "at a crossroads", blaming the country's economic woes on regional instability, the burden of hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees and a lack of international support.
"Either (Jordan) can come out of the crisis and provide a dignified life to our citizens, or, God forbid, it can go into the unknown -- but we have to know where we are going," he told a group of journalists, according to the official Petra agency.
Last month, the government proposed a new income tax law, yet to be approved by parliament, aimed at raising taxes on employees by at least 5% and on companies by between 20 and 40%.
It was the latest in a series of austerity measures since Amman secured a $723-million loan from the IMF in 2016.
