On 1 June 2014, the Egyptian Minister of Finance announced that a general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR) will be added to the country's income tax law. Under the GAAR, the tax authorities may disregard a transaction if its main purpose, or one of its main purposes, is to avoid or defer tax.
When evaluating a transaction in terms of GAAR, the burden of proof is on the tax authorities to determine that a particular transaction's main purpose is avoidant in nature. However, taxpayers should also p…