According to the opinion of the Union of Chambers of Commerce there is no need for the Minister of Finance to sign a new order to reduce the excise tax. It turns out that due to the change of government, the current order is valid until February 15, 2023.
As you may recall, due to the increase in fuel prices in the past year, Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman signed a decree reducing the excise tax on fuel. This moderated the increases and in some months its price even decreased. The last order to reduce the excise tax that Lieberman signed was at the end of last November and is valid until the end of 2022.
Apparently, due to the fact that there is no finance minister to sign a new order to reduce the excise tax, the order will expire and the benefit to the public will end on December 31. As a result, the price of fuel is expected to increase by approximately 30 cents per liter, starting from the beginning of January 2023. This is in addition to the global increase in fuel prices that occurred during December. According to estimates, the price of a liter of gasoline is expected to cross the NIS 7 mark.
However, in an urgent letter issued by Attorney Uriel Lin, president of the Union of Chambers of Commerce, to Finance Minister Lieberman, Lin claims that this is a mistake and that there is no need for the Minister of Finance to issue a new order. “Section 38 of the Basic Law of the Knesset enumerates a series of situations in which the validity of enactments that were supposed to expire” says Lin. “One of them concerns the situation in which a decree was supposed to expire in the first three months of the establishment of a new Knesset. According to the Basic Law, in such a situation the legislation is automatically extended for a period of three months.’
The new Knesset was sworn in on November 15, and therefore, the Association of Chambers of Commerce claims that the decree ordering the reduction of the excise tax on fuel is valid until February 15, 2023 without the need for any other active action.
The Association of Chambers of Commerce claims that the automatic extension of the temporary order is also valid for a long list of duties and purchase taxes that were reduced on a very large amount of products, including consumer products, industrial products, raw materials and more. “These reductions were made by way of a temporary order that was supposed to expire at the end of the month, but by virtue of the provision of Article 38 of the Basic Law, they also continue in force until mid-February. The same should be done with the excise tax on gasoline and diesel,” the union says.
According to Lin, “There is no reason for the continued increase in the cost of living. Therefore, I call on the Minister of Finance to personally instruct the Tax Authority to prepare for the extension of the temporary order accordingly.’
In any case, the Association of Chambers of Commerce says that if the Treasury opposes the actual extension of the temporary order, the issue should be referred to the decision of the legal adviser to the government.