Expats, including Indians, living in Saudi Arabia seem to be a worried lot today. After all, the Saudi government’s plan to introduce an ‘expat levy’ from July 2017, with charges of up to SR800 per worker to be phased in by 2020, is going to cost them heavily, which many of them may be unable to bear. In 2017 itself, each dependent of expats will incur a monthly fee of Saudi Riyal (SR) 100 (about Rs 1700) from July onwards, which will increase every year until 2020. The levy on expat workers will also be gradually revised upwards from next year, providing an additional impetus for employers to hire more Saudis.For companies in which expats do not exceed the number of Saudi or GCC employees, the fee will no longer be waived, but will be charged at a discounted rate. A fee on dependents of expatriate workers will also be levied. It will commence in July of 2017, in order to minimize the impact on families with children enrolled in school. Currently, neither Saudi nationals nor foreign laborers pay income taxes, and this policy will remain in place, the government says.